Moving On
by Missmishka
Summary: Quite simply: Carol prepares to move on. A post-2x07 alternate canon series picking up not long after the events of the episode, but no real timeline is established. Because I needed to write something inspiring. 21/? Uploaded.
1. Chapter 1

This was intended to just be a quick and simple drabble focusing on the scene I envisioned at the end, but I got caught up in this moment with Carol and she simply had to have it shared with all of you, too. It may go a bit long, as it's definitely longer than I intended, but I hope y'all enjoy. :-)

Also, I'm not sure of the accuracy in labelling the Grimes' family transport as a "Jeep" but it looks like an old Cherokee or Wagoneer to me, so I'm going with that.

_**Moving On by MissMishka**_

DISCLAIMER: The usual warnings, I claim no ownership of these characters, they are simply borrowed with love and adoration from the original creators to have their stories embellished on a little more than the show may do. Not for any profit.

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><p>The breeze was faint, the silence complete and, despite it all, there was still something special about this farm.<p>

Carol knelt in the stillness of the moment, luxuriating in the rarity. The clay dirt was warm beneath her knee and the same sun that had baked the earth was now shining brightly on her slightly bowed head. Its warmth was even managing to sink into _her_.

It hadn't been up for long yet and a long day awaited them all. None would begrudge her of this moment of serenity, though.

They imagined she was saying good-bye, but she wasn't. Not really. Maybe they thought she was saying "see you soon," but that wasn't happening either. Carol wasn't saying anything and, though she was kneeling, praying was also the last thing she would be doing.

Even she was amazed to find herself thinking ahead. When winter came, this field would be glorious buried under a blanket of pristine snow and she was thinking how right that they all had been.

_Sophia's going to love it here._

The grave was marked simply, a short piece of two by four pounded down into the ground with a small piece of wood bearing her daughter's name nailed to it. Dale had made the marker. He had asked her for the date of Sophia's birth so he could make it as real a headstone as possible by recording the years of her daughter's life, but at that time Carol hadn't been able to speak much and could only think – _not long enough_.

Days worth of flowers were strewn over the heavy stones placed atop the dirt to keep anything from getting at her little girl's body. Weeds, mostly, gathered and lain by the others.

Carl had been faithful in bringing something new a pretty each morning after his chores had been completed. He would have been a good man for her daughter if the two had managed to grow up together and Carol had been foolish enough to find hope in those moments when she'd watched the children together in the camp. Fool to believe in this world that there may have ever been a hope of them all journeying to relics of the past like the Grand Canyon to enjoy like a family or even _normal_ people again.

Wetness began to form and roll down her face as her mind wandered, but it was solely from the sweat brought forth by her direct exposure to the Georgian summer heat. The tears had stopped just yesterday and she doubted she'd find any more in her to cry for a while yet.

This was a moment not meant for grief. There had been more than enough of that in her daughter's twelve years on this world. Carol only wished the girl had been there long enough to see her mother grow up, but it was the typical irony of life that had made certain she could only find this woman inside herself after having had her baby taken so horribly from her.

"Mrs. Carol," a familiar voice spoke with respectful quiet behind her, bringing a fond smile to her face. "Dad says we're about ready."

She looks back at the boy and he moves slowly forward upon seeing the soft curl of her lips. He had managed to find violets that morning, she saw as he stood beside her, a fistful of the pretty little flowers in his right hand. Carl, like most of the others, was so timid and cautious around her anymore. There was no blame or anger or even regret in her for that fact. She more than understood their caution, given how she'd been of late.

In moments of her suffering, even the breeze had incurred her wrath for daring to blow when she just wanted to be still and dead to this world. The stars in the night sky had evoked her sobs.

There was no getting better from any of that. Not really. But at least she understood the grief would always be a part of herself that she could live with. While she might still be trying to figure out _why_ to live with it, Carol knew she would just keep going now.

_Sometimes the profoundest knowledge came from the oddest sources_, she thought, remembering back to just the night before when she'd been so boldly challenged to get a grip on herself.

Drawn from her thoughts by the realization that the boy was waiting for something, she gave a brief nod and silently gave her consent for this last offering to be placed.

"We're never gonna to see her again, are we?" he asks as he straightens from his task.

The mother in her wanted to give some reassurance to a child in need of it, but reality had cut them all too deeply for that to work anymore.

"We just have to remember her," is the best she can manage as she pushes slowly to her feet.

"I could never forget her," Carl assures Carol with unshakable certainty.

Rather than grab the boy to her chest and sob as part of her wanted to, she brushed the dust from the knee of her Capris and put a hand on the top stone of the pile. With an intuition beyond his years, the boy sensed her need for another moment alone and was gone before she could say anything in response to his avowal.

Breathing deeply one last time of the fresh air of this place, her fingers move from the rock to the crude cross. She traces her daughter's name on the wood and wonders if she should have allowed them to put something more on it. In the end, though, what else was there to have been said.

With that in mind, she silently slipped the chain in her hand over the tip of the two by four and let the necklace drop to hang down over the nameplate. The sun caught on the gold cross as it swung briefly from the motion and she stopped the movement with a steady finger. Stepping back, she took the scene in like a freeze-frame. Capturing it in her mind forever, because they would never return here. For better or worse, whatever was ahead, that was one thing she knew as well as Carl did.

A flutter of white drew her gaze to the ground where the marker was planted and the Cherokee roses lying there made her smile once more. Carl had not been the only one who'd made daily pilgrimages to this place and it touched her as much as it hurt to see such love displayed for Sophia. She could only hope that wherever her girl had gone after this life that Sophia went there with some idea of how much she had meant in such a short time to these people.

Carl was at her side in an instant as she finally turned from the grave to head toward the convoy preparing to head out. Without a word, their hands clasped and they just strolled across the distance. Everyone was ready to put this place behind them, but they also knew with a leaden feeling in their souls just what all it was that they were leaving behind with it.

Noise returned to Carol's life as they arrived back among the others. The last minute hustle of making sure they had everything was chaotic and she let go of Carl's hand so he could run along to make sure Rick didn't have any chores for the boy. Watching the boy run off, Carol could see the ghost of her daughter looking back at her in askance before chasing along after him as the children had so often done when the group packed up like this. It brought a wistful smile to her lips and the realization that maybe she would see her baby again, just not in any sane sense of the word.

The smile left her as her eyes locked with Lori's and the sheriff's wife had the grace to drop her gaze quickly to the ground. While part of Carol was grateful for the other woman's concern, there was still too much grief and bitterness in her for there to be peace between them at the moment. The news of the pregnancy had been announced on the same day that Sophia had been laid to rest and, in her grief, she'd said and felt some harsh things. Carol knew it would pass and she would be by that woman's side to do all she could to help bring that new life into this world regardless, but that time hadn't come yet.

The busywork abruptly ceased at her return and Carol knew that's all it had been. They'd all been ready to go before daybreak, but had been kind enough to allow her these last moments and she could never express her gratitude to them all for that.

Maggie moves past her at that moment, having just finished her good-byes to Hershel and Carol tries not to worry about the young woman's choice. It was one thing for them to be leaving here, not having been part of this place before they found themselves briefly sheltered on the farm, but this was Maggie's home. On the other hand, she can't imagine this group without Glenn among them and Carol knows that the pair was not to be separated from here on out. She watches as Glenn appears from nowhere, lies a gentle hand on his girlfriend's shoulder then takes the girl into his waiting arms when she falls apart. The couple clings for a moment in the open, the others making a point of not witnessing the emotional display, then the pair climbs into the RV.

_To imagine anyone finding love in this place…._

Unbidden, her blues eyes move to the front of the line of vehicles preparing to move down the dirt road back on to journey to Fort Benning. He's leaning against his motorcycle, gazing off into the distance as still as she's ever seen him as he drags deeply from the last of the cigarettes he'd found back on the highway. As if sensing her quiet study, his head unexpectedly turns to catch her looking. Their eyes meet for just a moment through the haze of smoke he exhales and she can't help but feel, no matter the impropriety, like a schoolgirl caught fantasizing about that untamable bad boy every good girl wanted.

Having given the couple in the camper a few minutes for Maggie to compose herself, the group began loading up without a single command spoken. It was instinctive to them now and she couldn't help but marvel at the ballet of it as they took their places.

Shane was quick to get into his car at the back of the pack and she wished he weren't still part of them as he slams his drivers' side door shut and starts the engine. In another time and place, she could imagine him cranking up the radio with some loud angry music before peeling off and leaving them all in a spray of gravel like an angered adolescent. Fortunately, he was smart enough not to play any music as the noise might draw Walkers down on them, but she could still sense the tantrum in him. None in the group would or could forget the nightmare that that man's actions had brought about on _that_ day. Carol agreed that the barn had been a worry, but dealing with those Walkers…_**her daughter **like **that**_, had just added to the wrongness of this world.

T-Dog and Dale were heading for the Winnebago. Rick, Carl and Lori were preparing to get back in the old Jeep. Only Andrea and Carol were left for a moment on the outside of the activity and their eyes locked as they each had some confusion to work through pretty quickly. The silent communication, during which Carol had no idea what was being said, left them exchanging a quick nod of agreement then turning to go in opposite directions.

"Aren't you getting in?"

Her steps pause at Carl's innocently posed question and Carol looks briefly at the boy and his family and _that_ vehicle. Even if it weren't tainted with those last memories of time spent with Sophia, Carol had no desire whatsoever to accept that particular ride. Still, it was the only invitation she'd gotten and she felt it wise to consider the options one more time before going with the choice she'd already made.

He wasn't helping, when her eyes look in his direction. All he does is snuff out his cigarette, give his head a quick jerk towards her that seemed to say _"Whatever"_ and then he turns to throw his leg over the seat of his motorcycle. Lips twisting wryly at that way of his, she looks back to the others.

Andrea has just pulled the door shut after climbing into the passenger seat of Shane's ride. With a droop to his shoulders and sad shake of his head, Dale, who had been observing the blonde as usual, turns his attention to Carol. She sees the question in his eyes. He knew she wouldn't be wanting to ride with Rick's family and he wants her to know that she is most welcome to find transport in his RV. She smiles her thanks at that and gives a barely seen shake of her head. His expressive eyebrows lower in momentary confusion at her response. Then his gaze moves to the lone man at the front of the line and the motorcycle that normally would have already revved to life, indicating to them all that it was time to get a move on. Understanding dawns and his eyes return to hers. She sees the same concerns she feels, but he gives a brief nod of approval before climbing up into his vehicle.

Breathing in a slow breath, she skims her eyes over the Grimes' and gives them a nod of thanks before gripping the strap of her hobo shoulder bag. There's no hesitation in her step now as she turns back to the front of the procession. The old Carol would have turned tail and run at his lack of welcome, but the Phoenix that was rising within her saw past his silence. Though he kept his head forward, eyes seemingly trained on the horizon they'd be crossing, her wizened gaze saw the way his hands eased their white knuckled grip on the handles of the bike as she came to a stop beside it. Some of that same relief coursed through her before she was distracted by a moment's uncertainty about how to get on this thing.

Forty years and she'd never been on a motorcycle. Never even wanted the experience, given how dangerous the things and their riders usually appeared. This phase was all about things that most of them had never been or done before the sickness. She refused to let fear be a controller any longer, though, and while she wasn't up for a Sarah Connor transformation like Andrea, she could certainly manage this.

Not seeing any other option unless she wanted to fall on her butt, Carol places her left hand on Daryl's shoulder then moves to throw her right leg over the rear of the bike. Her fingers want to linger over the bone and sinewy strength of muscled warm flesh, but the time isn't right for that. His sudden tenseness tells her that, so she lets him go as soon as she's settled on the seat behind him. She rubs her moist palm over the side of her pants, partly her own nervousness, but also from the sweat that was already sheening on his skin from the sun, and she tries to figure out what she's to do next.

Instinct guides her Keds clad feet to the pegs along the side for the passenger to use, but there's nothing for her hands to grip. Her eyes latch on to the only thing she can see to hold on to and she gulps at the expanse of his back, wondering if she's to hold his shoulders, sides or waist. _Was there an etiquette she should know and obey to this?_

She could feel the gazes of Lori and Rick on her own back, so she twists her head around to look at the vehicle in line behind the motorcycle. Lori had apparently had to herd Carl into the back and she was still standing beside the door she had clearly shut behind him once the boy got in the car. The women exchange hesitant smiles and with a jerky nod, Lori gets in the Cherokee herself. Rick pauses for a moment in the open driver's side door, gripping the top of the door in his hand as he meets Carol's gaze. While he is clearly worried about her, she knows he doesn't question her choice and that eases her some to have his unspoken reassurance.

"Just don't fall off," the Sheriff orders with a rare grin before nodding past her and getting behind the wheel of the old yellow beater.

With some surprise, her gaze darts forward to see that Daryl's head had also turned to look back. Their gazes lock and something seizes in her chest as his lip quirks suddenly upward on just the left side.

"You heard the man," he says in that gruff accent of his. "Best hold on tight."

It was more permission than she ever would have hoped for, so she quickly obeyed. Her arms wrapped themselves around his slim waist and she leant forward to press her face into his back. She was sure she was blushing, but imagined that he was too and marveled at this odd moment in time.

The bike rumbled to life, making her jump. Her grip tightened instinctively as he shifted his feet off the ground, kicked up the kickstand and set the machine in motion. As they began to move, the scent of him sank in and she just barely stopped herself from inhaling deeper. As the time went on without them being able to bathe again, it might not always be so appealing to catch a whiff of him, but at that moment she found comfort in his smell. They'd all bathed hours ago, so he smelled of the same soap and shampoo she did. But he also smelled of the cigarette he'd smoked, the grease he'd gotten from tweaking the engine of this bike while he waited for the others to finish readying their own transport and, most of all, his own distinct maleness teased her nostrils.

Oddly calmed, she eased her hold around his waist and pulled her nose from his back for a last look at the place her daughter would now lay forever. Her gaze touched on the farmhouse and other structures - avoiding the barn still standing in the distance. The trees and fields. The stacks of stone that marked all the graves were stark reminders in the peaceful setting and she didn't linger on them. Her eyes went to Sophia's marker and she said another useless prayer that her baby may find rest there.

The convoy was all in motion behind them and Carol exhaled a slow breath before resolutely facing forward. She feels the wind start to whip around them as the bike picks up speed, the vibration of the machine beneath them and thinks she may begin to understand why he likes this mode of transportation.

A wry smile briefly twists her lips at the realization that she may find herself enjoying the 'bitch' seat. Mrs. Ed Peletier was dead now and this Carol would only allow herself to find humor in that. And it was so oddly funny to her that she let out a soft huff of laughter. The sound made Daryl's body tense and his head began to turn back towards her. Something in the way she dropped her head back to his shoulder-blades and shook it to get rid of the out of place mirth must have reassured him, though, because no question was asked as he faced forward again.

The moment of humor left her as quickly as it had come and Carol was exhausted by its departure. She finds herself wondering if its safe to sleep on the back of a motorcycle, because she thinks she could manage it between the steady vibration of the bike and the solid comfort of his body to press against. Not wanting to risk falling off and holding them all up, she decides it's best not to try and pushes away from the surprising intoxication of Daryl Dixon to sit up and watch the scenery pass by. It would change drastically as they made their way to the military base and she would miss this quiet countryside. But the time had definitely come for moving on.


	2. Chapter 2

I had to write something … more to balance the darker muses of the day. The idea for this had had more to it, but as I wrote, just this part found its way out. More will follow, because I am re-opening this idea to fashion it into a another series for Caryl to grow. :-)

**_Return, by MissMishka_**

Disclaimer in chapter 1

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><p>They stopped to make camp on the highest rise they could find on the outskirts of the military base, not wanting to just blindly go forward into this place as they had the CDC.<p>

Daryl brought the motorcycle to a shuddering stop and carefully looked around before killing the engine's rumble. As she sensed the other vehicles in the procession coming to a similar halt after making a circle for the camp to be established in and the occupants preparing to exit, Carol realized she needed to get off the bike. Her arms were slow to release their hold on his waist, but he made no comment on it nor did he do anything to hurry her along.

Shakily, she braced a hand on his shoulder and shifted her weight to swing off the machine. There was an odd numbness in her thighs and backside from the ride and she understood why vibrators had that warning against prolonged use. Blushing red and horrified at that unexpected thought, she hurriedly whipped around in hopes he'd not seen anything that betrayed the idea.

"You alright?" he asked, right there to steady her as her abrupt action caused her to wobble.

He'd lowered the kickstand and risen from the motorcycle so smoothly she'd not even sensed him moving, let alone standing at her side.

Her nod was quick and sure, encouraging no further question as she forced the redness from her cheeks and ignored the quirked brow that clearly wanted to learn what had caused the blush. The others spared her any other scrutiny by beginning to unpack and talk amongst themselves. Instinctively, they moved to do the parts they had become used to filling when the group made a new camp. She couldn't help but worry as he pulled the weapon from the saddlebag he kept it in before melting into their surroundings to make sure there were no surprises or dangers in the immediate area, but distracted herself with setting up tents.

He stepped noiselessly back among the group shortly thereafter, just as they'd started a low fire to cook a lunch on. She forced herself to remain seated when she wanted to run at him in relief. Rick's gaze snapped up to meet the hunter's and Carol watched with pride as the two men exchanged a quick, speaking glance and nod. Somehow in that easily missed moment, their unofficial leader asked Daryl if this place they'd chosen was safe and Daryl assured the other man that it'd do for the night.

The bow settling quietly on the ground just to the back of her, caused Carol to start in surprise. The shocks continued for her as he began to ease himself down on to the fallen tree next to her. No one else seemed to find anything odd in Daryl's choice in seating, so she forced her heartbeat to return to normal. When Maggie began dishing up the simple meal of canned meat and vegetables she'd volunteered to make, Carol leapt forward with relief to help hand out the plates to others.

His eyes watched her and, for once, she couldn't deny that they were on her. She supposed that the hours spent clinging to his back like a vine had given him the leeway to be a bit bolder. The idea of the direction they might be moving in, that she _wanted_ them to be moving in, had the plate in her hand shaking just a bit as she extended it to the man. She damned near dropped the thing like it had burnt her as his hand came up, not to take the plate, but to steady her with a touch to her wrist.

"Thanks," he said gruffly before he took his hand away and accepted the dish.

She wanted to rub at her wrist, almost feeling scorched by the fleeting gesture, but instead she just made one last trip to the campfire to collect her own portion.

"I'd like you to go ahead with us," Rick said after everyone had been given a chance to eat some before broaching the subject.

"Planned on it," Daryl answered without looking up from the food he shoveled in to his mouth.

Carol wished there had been some confusion among the gathering as to whom Rick had been aiming his statement, but somehow even she had known it to be directed to the man at her side. Appetite suddenly gone, she made to rise to scrape her plate into the fire. A booted foot nudging her own and a subtle grunt stopped her, though.

"Eat," he ordered softly when he knew he had her attention.

Her hand obeyed without conscious thought as she stared into his eyes and read concern there. She looked away to take the bite waiting on her fork and heard a satisfied noise from him before he resumed cleaning his own plate.

"Don't need a bunch of feet stomping around down there if the place is infested," Shane protested, hunkered down at the edge of the group and finishing off the last of his portion.

"Then you can stay and guard the camp," Rick replied firmly.

"I ain't ever stomped any where, punk," Daryl retorted at the same time, setting aside his empty dish and getting to his feet. "But keep up your yapping and I will _stomp_ **_your_ **ass."

With that, all the men in the group were instantly on their feet and Carol struggled with the urge to shrink away from the aggression filling the air. There was an anger between the two men that they all knew would have to be dealt with and it scared her. Not because she feared it overflowing and hurting anyone else in the group but because she knew Shane would not fight fair and would likely try to get at Daryl at a vulnerable moment.

"Not now," Rick said as he put himself between the two puffed-up chests before they bumped together beside the fire. "Daryl, get your gear. We'll head on out since you seem to be finished."

A choice was made with that order and Carol felt her fear worsen at the hatred she saw flash like fire in Shane's eyes before he banked it.

"Rick…," the man began to plead his case, but Rick shut him down.

"You're right," the Sheriff said, putting up a silencing hand to his friend, "we don't need feet stomping around down there. That's what you'll be if you come with us, cocked up like this. Set up a perimeter here and walk it off."

While none of them really wanted Shane to stay behind, they weren't going to argue with Grimes' order and, thankfully, neither was the subtly chastised man. His shaved head dropped forward and with a careless wave of his hand he indicated that they could get on along without him. Carol also read in the gesture that they could not return while they were at it, as far as the officer was concerned.

"I'll be right back."

Startled by the quiet promise, she looked away from the scene between the old friends and found herself looking straight into the clear blue eyes of one Daryl Dixon. He was right about the never stomping and she wished he'd make just a little more noise when he walked so she wouldn't get a start like that. Her eyes looked into his, but she couldn't voice any of the concerns she felt as he leant past her to pick up the crossbow from where he'd left it.

His chest was so close, it seemed natural for her hand to rise to it. Through the material of his shirt, she felt the hitch of breath in his chest and the thud of his heart. After a moment, he exhaled the sharp breath he'd sucked in at her touch. Without a word, he wrapped his fingers around hers, there, for a heartbeat, before he pulled her hand away.

The pair left quickly after that, just Daryl and Rick doing the recon. She watched them move from sight with her hand going habitually to the bare hollow of her throat. Having forgotten for the moment that she had left it on Sophia's grave, the missing cross jarred her. It had been a gift from her mother and she'd worn it faithfully since the eighteenth birthday she'd received it on. Leaving it with her child had been right, but she wondered what she'd use as her worry stone without it.

Sounds of the camp shifting to clean up mode stirred her from the horizon she'd still been staring at and she gladly focused on helping. She told herself she needn't worry. If he said he would be back, Daryl _would_ return to her.


	3. Chapter 3

You may have noticed in the series that I'm adding of this fandom and pairing that some of the chapters have subtitles and some do not. For each one that has a subtitle, there is a theme, topic or inspiration for that particular moment in the piece….

**_Sheltered, by MissMishka_**

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><p>Carol couldn't believe she had drifted off to sleep, but it was obvious that she had when she was jerked to awareness in the dark of her tent by a rustling at her side moments before the flap was quickly zipped closed again. It should have scared her that he or anyone could just enter her sanctum like this, but she was too surprised by his presence to feel anything else.<p>

She laid still on her sleeping bag, curled on her left side facing the blue canvas, knowing Daryl had returned without looking towards the intruder that she wouldn't even have been able to see in the darkness. Sounds of the camp filtered in and she would have known even without the tension that she sensed out there that the two men had bad news regarding Fort Benning.

After darkness had fallen and minutes then hours continued to tick past, any optimism among them had slowly died. Carol had crawled into the tent to escape the sight of a tearful Lori, pulling Carl into her lap as the boy had started to cry softly at his father's prolonged absence. She hadn't been able to watch the others as they stopped expecting the scouts to come back to the camp. If she had allowed that thought to start in her own head, there would have been no retrieving her back from the dark place she'd gone after losing Sophia. Especially without Daryl to work his magic again to bring her from that place.

Her mind had blanked as she'd curled into the fetal position and simply stared at the inside of the tent wall once inside the shelter. No thoughts or fears had rushed her, she simply hadn't had the heart or energy to think. Perhaps that's why she had lapsed into sleep.

Questions filled her head now as she heard a gentle, but heavy thud that she somehow knew was Daryl setting down his crossbow inside the tent. Unlike the others she could hear angrily and disbelievingly questioning Rick, she had no interest in hearing the answers she knew she would get, though. All that mattered was that Daryl, that _both_ of the men, were back among them and the questions would be answered all too soon.

Her ears twitched away from the sounds outside to those within the tent. A lighter, more careless thud told her that the familiar sheath had been unfastened from its belt loop and his knife tossed down to join the other weapon close at his hand. Something about her visualizing his putting down those defenses fluttered her heart more than his shifting to sit and begin unlacing his boots. She knew he didn't sleep in the nude, no one did any more given how sleep could be disturbed so easily by the threat of death and the need to flee, but her breath still caught at the realization that he was preparing to bed down.

_With her._

Not as he had in the RV when they'd been sleeping in it on the highway. On those nights he had lain near her, offering her a comfort and defense against her worry about Sophia that she still could not find words enough to thank him for. He had only gotten as close as the floor beside her bed, though, always giving her space or keeping his own.

Now, the world shrank down to just the two of them in that small space and he was preparing to bed down _with_ her. Once the shock passed, the reality of that realization allowed her to breathe. Concerns about all things outside the tent were pushed right along to the outside for later. For the moment, her mind honed in on the fact that Daryl Dixon was settling down to sleep with her.

The questions in her mind shifted focus and flew furiously about, but she could speak none of them to break the silence in the shelter.

"This alright?"

His question was so softly uttered that she wondered if he'd even spoken it into the darkness. She responded with a quick nod, not really knowing what _this_ was for it to be ok or not. She belatedly realized he couldn't have seen her response, but her lack of protest must have been enough as he made himself comfortable. Knowing that that would prove impossible, given that the only buffer between body and hard earth was the large sleeping bag she had doubled over under herself, she shifted to her knees to change that.

"Don't," he didn't catch her hand to stop her from unfolding the sleeping bag to spread out under them both, but the way his hand came so near her own froze her just the same. "I'm fine."

"It's big enough," she argued quietly, forcing him to scoot over far enough for her to lay the bedding flat.

Her hands falter in the act of smoothing the material over the space he would return to lie. The realization that she's never actually slept with any man other than Ed makes her feel awkward and oddly ashamed in the darkness. Not shame in sharing any kind of intimacy with this man, but ashamed in the poor choices that she had made to this point in her life. Ed, fortunately, had not been her first or only lover, but she had married him at a foolishly young age. Her only other experience, though, had been fumbling and brief stolen moments in the back seat of a car or the bed of a pickup truck with her high school sweetheart.

Misreading her sudden stillness, he grabs his boots and begins to move toward the flap. Her hand snaps out, unbidden, to catch his wrist, but she can't get the word she wants to say to come out. Speech just seemed wrong to her in the darkness.

He gave her what she would have asked for, though, stopping, then slowly returning to lie down after she let go of his arm. She laid down next to him after he settled, on her back as well, this time, their shoulders brushing in the close confines.

He said nothing else and neither did she.

Her eyes were locked on the unseen roof of the tent and she somehow knew his were, too.

She inhaled a breath as he exhaled and she somehow knew that that, too, was something that they matched on without any conscious forethought.

The light of dawn was filtering in when she awoke, sensing his absence. It gave her a start to not have him there, making her wonder if she'd simply fantasized the whole thing to avoid the reality of his never having returned from Fort Benning.

Her gut lurched and her heart thudded at that thought, sending her out of the tent in a rush. The momentary panic left her blind to the sight of him squatted down next to a fledgling campfire, but the smell of meat frying drew her attention around. She watched with disbelief and a crushing relief as he added some kindling to the low flames so they would reach and cook the bounty of a hunt he had apparently had before dawn.

Rather than hunger for the food, she felt only concern at how little, if any sleep, he could have gotten. She fought an urge to chastise him, knowing how he'd take it if she showed that concern for his welfare. Instead, she wiped off the palms that seemed forever damn in his presence and moved quietly to help him prepare breakfast.

Neither spoke as they again found an uncanny harmony with their actions. He had fashioned a rough spit to cook his rabbits on and she was careful not to knock it into the flames as she mixed up more powdered eggs.

The smells of breakfast began to draw the others out, as it always did, and she tried her hardest not to be angry with them for taking that harmony from her. As she rose with some reluctance to fill the kettle with water for coffee and tea she found Daryl's gaze upon her and saw the same regret in his briefly unguarded eyes.

It warmed her more than the fire had and she wondered how long feelings like this could last in this new world.


	4. Chapter 4

Consider this one for you, Shipperwolf. ;)

**_Rain Coming, by MissMishka_**

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><p><em>In hindsight, this pile-up should have been all that they had needed to see to know the Fort was a lost cause.<em>

Carol clung to Daryl unabashedly as he slowly wove the motorcycle through the abandoned vehicles on the highway as they began the journey away from Fort Benning. The scene was just as horrific as the last time they'd pushed through this kind of mess and remembering that last day she had had with her daughter caused a noise, not unlike a whimper, to rise from her throat. Turning her head to bury her face against his back did nothing to stop the images as she hadn't been seeing any of the bodies on this stretch of road, only really remembering the last time.

His hand on her knee slowly brought her around to the fact that they had stopped moving. It wasn't a caress or even much of a touch, more like his arm had dropped after releasing the handlebars and her leg was just where his palm had fallen, but it somehow grounded her. Then his fingers pressed ever so slightly into her flesh and she knew that the contact had been deliberate.

He _had_ been comforting her.

Just as the realization hit, he released her like a hot stone and she reluctantly unwound herself from him as he tensed in that way that she now knew to mean he was getting off the bike. Her hands went to the back of the seat to steady herself as he slid from the machine and moved towards the vehicles that had been forced to stop a ways back. After a moment of his absence, another realization struck her.

She was alone on the motorcycle.

Feeling like a naughty child, she slowly crept forward on the seat until she straddled the same place he had just left. She imagined him _there _and bit her lip at the way her thighs clenched alongside the seat. Her eyes looked over the bits of metal before her, then her fingers rose to ghost over parts she knew no name of until they came to a rest on the handles. She gripped the ends of those bars in her hands, just as he did, and she imagined those scarred knuckles where hers were.

The keys were in the ignition, but she had no desire to try taking the thing for a spin, even if the way weren't blocked. There had just been some compulsion in her to see what it felt like to be at the control of the machine. Still, she jumped guiltily when his reflection suddenly appeared in the mirror mounted on the handlebars.

He just gave her one of those sideways grins, though, as she scrambled off the bike in a rush that almost knocked it over.

"Keep your eye out for a truck," he instructed unexpectedly as he pulled out his bow and slung the strap over his shoulder.

"A truck?" she questioned, frowning slightly.

"Gonna need something to haul this on," was his answer, given without really looking at her more than a glance. "Rain's coming."

So, as the group began the tedious process of clearing vehicles out of the way, she kept her mind focused on the task of finding suitable transport. She wondered if maybe he had had that in mind as she opened yet another car door and stepped back quickly to allow the corpse of the driver to fall to the ground. A shudder of revulsion worked its way through her as she moved the stiff body as caringly as possible to a spot where it'd hopefully go untouched by the moving vehicles.

As she abandoned the corpse at the side of the road and gasped in a breath to recover the one that she had held against the smell of death, her eyes caught on the bumper of a nearby truck. With some excitement, she went to explore further, eyes instinctively searching for Daryl among the work being done. His head snapped around to meet her gaze, as if sensing it, and she gave an unconscious summons with the tilt of her head.

"I drive American," is all he said after looking at her find and rejecting it without her saying a thing.

She frowned after him as he walked off then huffed out a breath and got back to work.

It seemed to take forever for them to make any headway. The desperate tangle of vehicles fleeing the area had resulted in quite a few accidents, making the removal of some obstacles problematic. They all kept at it without question, though, pushing on with growing urgency as the sun passed the point of high noon. Camp had broken up that morning with them having no destination in mind, but the goal of getting far from there had been clear. With the morning now gone, they all felt the coming of night, despite it being hours away, and no one wanted to be stuck on another roadway in the dark.

Carol took it upon herself to distribute a single MRE and bottle of water to each member of the group with the passing of lunchtime. She saved Daryl's for last, looking anywhere but at him after he took the bottle of water, ripped off the cap and greedily started to gulp the liquid down. Kicking herself for not having thought of water sooner, she took the cap from her own bottle and drank just a bit before giving the rest to him.

He accepted the bottle with a glare, which she returned without flinching. Without a word spoken between them, she found herself leaning against the side of some automobile and opening both their rations.

"They all taste like shit," he scoffed when she instinctively sniffed at her meal before setting to eat it.

Knowing the truth of his statement, she picked up her spoon and began to pick at the supposedly edible mess. Noticing dirt on her hands, despite the gloves she'd been wearing for the work, she jabbed the utensil down in the ration and set it aside to rummage in her purse.

The grenade her fingers found reminded her that the men had brought more than new MREs back from their expedition to the military compound. Daryl had given her a handful of the things that morning, grinning as he'd said how they might come in handy again. She'd known the truth of those words and known, also, that keeping them readily accessible in her hobo bag was the best idea. Still, the contact was disconcerting and she continued her search more carefully in the bag.

After a moment, she locked in on the packet of wet wipes and pulled it out. There weren't many left, but she didn't hesitate to withdraw two from the pack before putting it back in her bag. They exchanged glaring glances again as he grudgingly took the one she thrust at him. She felt better about eating once they both resumed the task with hands wiped as clean as the sanitary cloth could do.

Mothering him truly was the last thing she wanted to do or to be seen as doing, but sometimes the situation called for it.

All too soon, the 'food' was consumed and break time was over. The others were quick to get back at it, but Carol lingered and was glad that he stayed with her. Their shared silence became somewhat awkward without a task to distract them and she found herself looking for something to help draw out their moment together.

It came from the very vehicle they'd been leaning so casually against.

It was a pickup. Big and new looking.

Excited and disbelieving that she'd failed to notice it the second she'd approached him, she went to the back of the truck. Her eyes locked on the famous blue oval and a smile lit her face. Even better than that, though, was the sight of a motorcycle already strapped down in the bed of the truck.

Her eyes met his and her bubble burst just a little at seeing in his gaze that he'd been aware of the find all along. Still, he didn't say anything and she could tell it pleased him to see her excited, so she held to that feeling.

"We'll get it unloaded once the rest is done."

"Why not just take it like it is?" she asked in genuine confusion.

She couldn't help thinking maybe it wouldn't be a bad idea to trade Merle's old motorcycle for one without ghosts attached. His grunt was all the answer she got before he stalked off to resume work clearing a path, but she'd seen enough in his eyes to know that _that_ bike would be going wherever he did.

Slightly saddened by that realization, she fished out the gloves she'd put in her back pocket and pulled them on to get back at it.

Given how useless a watch was any more, she couldn't say how much longer the task took, but finally it was done. While the others rallied back to the RV to take in some more water, Daryl went to the pickup and Carol followed him without question. He lowered the tailgate and climbed up on it like a kid in a candy store. The reverent way his hands glided over the motorcycle on the truck made her feel a bit wistful and…jealous of a machine.

"Brace it," he instructed, angling down the board he'd found tucked along the sidewall of the truck bed.

Not really knowing what that meant, she reacting on instinct and just wedged her end of the board against the pavement.

The owner of the vehicle had clearly used the piece to get his bike on and off the truck, because it was customized with a piece of metal at the top that fit over the edge of the tailgate. Still, it didn't seem at all safe and she watched with breath held as Daryl backed the motorcycle off the truck.

He rolled the machine to a stop a few feet away, saw her worry and gave her a careless grin that made her want to smack him. With a loving pat to the black metal tank bearing the Harley Davidson logo, he lowered the kickstand and swung off the bike. His shoulder nudged against hers in a way that she could only call playful as he strode past to collect his motorcycle and she was so distracted by that contact that she almost missed him loading up.

Seeing that skinny black tire at the front of the bike line up in the middle of that none too wide plank of wood snapped her from any daydreams, though.

"Isn't there another way?" she asked, stopping his forward motion with a hand on the handle he'd been about to turn for the boost of speed needed to get up the board.

"Sure, honey," he scoffed, "you grab this side, I'll get the other and we'll lift on three."

With that he gunned the engine and shot safely up the ramp and she swore to herself that she _would_ hit him when he climbed back down.

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><p>Author's Note: Daryl's motorcycle, as learned from the AMC blog for the show, isn't American made, but I'll patch that over in future chapters as I work more of the bike into the story-it is the third main character in this one. :P That line, though, just felt so Daryl to me and I had to put it *somewhere.* Also, I had had this whole scene of the camp breaking up kind of in my head, but as I started writing it it just went too long and started too many substories, so I cut it. The jump ahead to this scene just sits better with me. Fear not, though, I deleted nothing and may keep tweaking it to put in later. We'll see what my muses come up with as the series grows.<p> 


	5. Chapter 5

Sixx A.M. is such a big part of my TWD soundtrack and I so love this song for Caryl, if you've not heard it, get it. It's a 99 cent download on Amazon or, you know, however you like to get your tunes ;)

**_Are You With Me Now, by MissMishka_**

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><p>He kept fidgeting and, for the first time, Carol doubted her choice.<p>

Being inside a vehicle alone with him like this was different than riding along on the back of a motorcycle. With the roar of the engine and whip of the wind, it was nearly impossible to talk on a bike, so there'd never been an expectation or compulsion to do so.

The inside of the truck cab was quiet, though, the engine seeming to purr happily at having use once more and the silence was growing between them.

He looked casual enough, right hand on the steering wheel, left elbow braced in the opening of the rolled down window on his side of the vehicle. She saw, though, the way he'd bite at a fingernail every so often between casting sideways glances her way.

Daryl seemed to want to say something, but they hadn't exchange actual, deliberate words in the form of conversation since the night before they left the farm.

His restless transferred to her across the mere inches separating them on the leather bench seat and she twisted her hands in her lap before turning to look out the window at the slowly passing scenery.

She didn't really see any of it, though, as she remembered the moment at yet another dying campfire when she sat, simply staring into the hypnotically dancing and weaving flares of warmth and color. She had been thinking of cremation, she recalled, admiring the simple way the flames consumed everything within the fire ring they'd built and thinking how she'd prefer her body dealt with like that. She was glad they'd buried Sophia and didn't much care for the idea of being tossed on a bonfire as she'd seen so many Walker corpses, but she still liked the idea of being turned to ash rather than returned to the earth, as they said.

The thought that she didn't want to take any chances of having a body to rise back from that ground had just passed through her when he squatted down in front of her, blocking out the flames. His sudden appearance had startled her, knocking her back off the rock she'd been sitting on to sprawl in the dirt staring up at him.

He should have seemed demonic, with the glow of fire at his back, casting his features into darkness as he stared back at her, and maybe she had seen him that way.

A devil risen to make her a deal.

"You gonna be worth taking along?"

Hs words had been all the harsher for the quiet way in which he spoke them and something in her had twitched to awareness in the fog of mourning she'd been lost in.

"Groups getting smaller," his silhouette had twisted against the flaming backdrop as she had known him to be surveying the camp and considering the others sleeping in their shelters. "Not much more any of us can take on. If ya ain't able to carry yourself, you're like to fall behind," his eyes had pinned her to the dirt, even without her being able to see their intense blue light in the dark. "Can't promise I'll be there to pick you up, but I do know that there's not a one of them that will go looking for another stray now."

She had wanted to argue, to tell him she didn't need him picking her up or carrying her or worrying about whether she got left behind and that spark of defiance had shaken her from depression to the final stage of grieving her lost child.

Acceptance.

"If you're not willing to go on, you've gotta say it now. It's the survivors that are leaving here in the morning. If you ain't one of them, don't risk their lives by tagging along."

Beneath the threatening words, she had sensed a plea and it had reached her. There hadn't been anyone else in the darkness with them.

It had just been her and him and she had realized it would be _his_ life endangered if she carried on with no real will to do so. She may not need him picking her up if she fell and she had never asked for it, but she had realized in that instant that it was just what he had been doing and he would continue to do so to his own peril.

"_Are you with me now?"_

The words were the same he had spoken that night and it took her a few minutes to realize he had spoken them now, in the quiet of the pickup.

Realizing past had caught up with present, she jumped, hand going instinctively to the hollow of her throat, but, again, she found no cross to cling to like a talisman.

He was staring at her with a concern he obviously hated to show, frowning and gnawing at his lower lip like he'd been watching her for some time. She wondered how long she'd been caught up inside her own head and knew even a minute could prove too long a distraction in these days.

His gaze dropped to her restlessly moving hand, the frown intensifying as he looked at her bare neck and she stopped the motion to just press her palm against her chest. The rhythm of her heart changed minutely as his gaze followed her hand then went even lower, seeming to see her braless breasts under the light shirt she wore before darting back to focus straight ahead on the road.

She wondered sometimes if she were only imagining such glances or the meaning in them, when he got so skittish around her, but she didn't worry about it. Whether he was with her as a friend or lover, all that mattered was that, in this truck, on this road and in this horribly mutilated world; he was with her.

"Yeah," she finally answered, smiling softly when the words jerked his attention back to her in such a way that his hand on the steering wheel followed. "I'm with you," she whispered, holding in a laugh while he righted the wheel to keep the pickup from wrecking.

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><p>AN: Sorry for the delay. I've not forgotten this series or anything Caryl, just got wicked distracted by a few stray thoughts and also been watching Gossip a lot today 'cause I'm in a total Reedus mood and I just so LOVE him as Travis and that movie has gotten like no fictional love from viewers and I felt compelled to add to the slim pickings on here. :P Don't worry, I got it out of my system...until I can think of a good place to post the scene of Derrick/Travis/Jones that's burning in my brain. I really need to remember my livejournal password...or figure out what email the reminder was sent to because I still haven't gotten it...BLAST!


	6. Chapter 6

_**Now Comes The Night, by MissMishka**_

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><p>The rain came, just like Daryl had predicted.<p>

It was more than a cloud burst. It had all the appearances of being a heat breaker, which would be a welcome relief for a spell.

They made it to a campground in the state park and Carol was getting a little tired of the forests.

The darkness in the woods was creepy and she would forever be haunted by the idea of Sophia lost in such a place, floundering in the same kind of darkness until one of those creatures got her.

Carol had been oddly grateful to see only the one bit on her child, considering some of the horrific remains they had seen. The Walkers had feasted on Ed's soft belly and Carol never would have been able to cope with the idea of teeth and fingers tearing her little girl apart. A single bite had done more than enough.

As Daryl brought the truck to a stop and quickly killed the lights, the driving rain told them both that there would be no setting up on an actual this night. It just made more sense to stay in their vehicles and make do with another MRE for food and shelter.

His fingers drummed on the steering wheel for a moment as they both realized that the bench seat they sat on would have to suffice as the bed for both their bodies for the night.

"We'll need to get some things from the RV," she said, finally breaking the silence.

When she turned to get out of the pickup, though, she paused at the dark and wet outside the window.

"I'll go," he said, turning to open his door and slipping out before she could stop him.

She followed quickly behind him, scrambling to find him in the shadows as they both came around the rear of the vehicle.

"Said I'd do it," he groused quietly and she could sense his glare, even without seeing it. "Now we're both wet for no good reason."

"I _have_ a good reason," she emphasizes with a blush, thinking of the hours driving and the hours ahead, all stuck in the cramped confines of that pickup.

They were frugal with the water and she drank little, but she still had to pee.

Something of that must have conveyed itself to him, because he got back to moving and she followed closely in his footsteps to not think about the darkness. It was a short distance to the camper that had come to a stop a few yards away, but they were both dampened by the trip and bound to get wetter on the dash back.

Sleeping damp and cramped in the pickup was looking less and less appealing as she rushed into the Winnebago ahead of him and went straight to the tiny bathroom.

He was waiting right outside the door, his gear in hand, when she finished up. She cringed inside and blushed again at him having heard her relieve herself, but she knew he'd not thought a thing about it.

Daryl Dixon was a very basic man. His crude ways had been off-putting, for the most part, and unsettling in some fashion for the remainder.

It was comforting now, though, how he understood basic human nature and the no non-sense way he dealt with it.

Still, she was absurdly glad she'd only had to pee as she stumbled to a stop against him.

His hands were strong and easy on her as he helped to steady her. The touch helped her balance in standing, but it had an unsteadying effect on her pulse.

"Maybe you should…" he began, drawing her gaze sharply to meet his own, but he shifted his eyes immediately way.

Knowing the only place his words could have been going, she swallowed at the hurtful twinge in her chest.

"Do you want me to?" she asked softly, wishing he'd look at her, but knowing it was still unlikely she'd learn too much in his eyes.

"Gonna be cramped, is all," he shuffled his feet and shifted is grip on the backpack and bedding he held.

"And this wouldn't be?"

She looked over the quartet that would be bedding down in the RV, seeing the reluctance with which they all surveyed the possible sleeping options.

"I've spent too many nights in here," she whispered, looking toward the bed that had soaked up so many of her tears.

He looked at her, hearing the truth in those barely audible words, but this time she wouldn't look at him. Instead, she turned to collect her blanket, towels, their food, and a change of clothes, tucking them all into her thankfully spacious shoulder bag.

He accepted her choice with a simple nod then moved to leave the camper upon seeing she'd gotten all she felt she'd need.

It felt odd to come and go like that without saying anything to the others, but no one seemed inclined to really even acknowledge them. Glenn and Maggie were moving to the bed in the back, while T-Dog converted the table to an extra bed and Dale lingered at the wheel of the vehicle, staring out into the dark.

She left them with a quiet "Goodnight" and doubted any of them had heard her over their own thoughts, but she'd been compelled to say something.

Daryl waited for her after hopping down with a splash in the puddles forming on the ground. She looked up, but couldn't see more than his paleness in the dark before ducking her head against the rain. His hand touched her elbow, fingers skimming upward until he had a light hold on her bicep, which he used to urge her to a fast pace back to the truck.

Rather than leave her at the bumper for them each to get to their respective doors, he led her to the passenger side of the truck, opened the door and all but shoved her inside before closing her in. The interior light helped her glimpse him as he rushed around the front of the truck to go around to the drivers' side.

He tossed his things inside and climbed in after with a shake of drops from his hair. As he shut the door and settled back, she was the shiver go through him before the light went out and she wanted to coddle him so badly, her body clenched.

The nights were notoriously cool on the hottest days. Throw in a chilling rain and his damp clothes and he could likely catch cold from having taken that extra time in seeing to her.

She settled for digging a towel out and handing it toward him, nudging at him until he took the cloth from her. Once he had accepted it, she began to dab of the moisture on herself and hoped he'd follow suit.

From the grumbling shifts she heard, she could only grin as she imagined him swiping at the wetness on his own skin.

Knowing only changing clothes would help, she gave up the dabbing and looked across the space between them to see how well she could see him. He was there, pale face, arms and hands moving with the white towel in the dark cab, but specifics weren't visible.

Deciding for a little no non-sense action for a change, she tucked the towel up on the dash and toed off her sneakers. She pulled out the change of clothes from her bag and put them up beside the cloth. With her lower lip pulled between her teeth, she tried as subtly as possible to shimmy out of her Capris and panties.

She felt his surprise and knew he was aware of what she was doing, but she only sensed a fleeting touch of those eyes.

Trying not to be disappointed by that, having had no intention of putting on a show anyway, she reached for the towel to rub the dampness from her legs before taking down her dry pants to wriggle in to.

Before going for her top, she sensed him moving and peeked over to see his face lowered while his arms worked at something on the floor. After a moment, he gave a soft grunt and jerked then she heard a thud on the floorboard and realized he was taking off his boots.

Safe in the knowledge that he couldn't see it, she allowed a full smile to touch her lips in relief that he was following her example on this, as well.

She wasn't able to follow his example and keep her looking brief, though, when he tugged off his wet shirt and threw it up on the dash.

Even in the dark, she could see the flex and shift of muscle beneath that skin and it froze her.

He wasn't fit from a gym like Shane, just a natural lean which had been toned by plain old hard, physical labor. She often wondered what he'd done before all this, where all he had gained and utilized his unique skills, but those were discussions they most likely would never have.

Her stomach grumbled at its continued neglect, forcing her back into action, so they could both eat something.

She tore off her shirt and dried her torso with quick, rough strokes before tugging her fresh shirt on. She felt his gaze upon her again through that series of motions, but ignored it along with the shifting that told her he was trading his wet pants for dry ones pulled from his rucksack.

While he finished his quick change, she fumbled in her purse until she felt the increasingly familiar packaging of a 'meal, ready to eat.' Up with it came a bottle of water and the pack of sanitary wipes, with which she repeated her actions at lunch by removing a single wipe.

She thrust the first meal, bottle and wipe in his direction, knowing he'd get them when he was ready and not wanting to peek and _see_ if he was still in a state of undress. With him seen to, she rummaged for herself.

They ate without words between them and the rain on the roof to fill the silence.

Carol found that patter soothing, but it wasn't helpful when she wrapped herself in her blanket and tried to find a position to sleep in. She'd slept in these conditions a few times since the outbreak began, but the tension between them made her too restless to find any comfortable way to lean against the door and she heard him having a similar problem.

"Come 'ere," he suddenly said when she had about given up thoughts of sleep.

Her eyes darted up, to seek his for confirmation that the words had been uttered, let alone meant as an invitation. At her hesitance, he moved to grab her in the dark, turning and posing her like clay until he lay with his back against the drivers' door and hers rested against his chest. He immediately let her go once he'd gotten her stretched out more comfortably on the seat and part of her wished his hands had stayed.

It was better to recline against his pillowing body, but it was awkward to have her pillow breathe and remind her that she was lying on a man.

He couldn't be at all comfortable himself, positioned as he was with his right arm and leg running the length of the seat while his left leg dangled off the seat to give her room between his legs and his left arm was used to prop him up against the door.

She wriggled to get them both in a better position only to freeze when she felt a hardness at her backside that wasn't a spring poking up or any other of the possible excuses her mind ran through. The sudden tension in his body and the way his hand moved from the door to grip her hip, stilling her movements, told her he was indeed reacting to her intimate pressure against him.

Whether it was _her_ or just a body he responded to, she couldn't guess and wasn't about to dwell on.

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><p>Title and inspiration for another segment taken from song. Thank's to Mr. Rob Thomas. I'm really not sure where I went wrong with that replaying as I wrote...maybe it was too romantic a track. I love it regardless.<p>

My muses are misbehaving again and I'm too tired to fight them, plus I like what they did. The whole end of this was supposed to be this confession like quiet conversation in the dark, but that will apparently need set in another installment since Carol wanted to get wriggly so Daryl's get touchy. I don't blame her. I certainly wouldn't just settle for leaning back against him...

Since I was slightly derailed, I'm not sure where I wanna pick up next, so it may take me a minute or two to get back to y'all on this. Try not to dwell on _it_. ;-P


	7. Chapter 7

_**Rise Above This, by MissMishka**_

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><p><em><strong>No, baby. Run. <strong>_

_Carol watched helplessly as the Walker stumbled after Sophia. She could tell her girl was getting tired of running through the water, but she begged her to keep going. _

_**Don't look back, honey**__, she cried out when Sophia dropped the doll and stopped as if to go back for the toy. "__**RUN**__!"_

_Oh, God, it was going to get her. _

_Carol tried to run after her girl, wanting to scoop the child up and hold her to her chest as they fled or fell together, but something held her back. _

_She fought it. _

_She had to get to Sophia. _

_Her baby girl was so close and so scared and she just needed to hold her again. Let her know her mama was there. _

_**Go, baby, don't stop**__, she urged as Sophia faltered, wishing she could call the child to her, but her voice remained strangely silent._

"_**No. Sophia. Not my little girl."**_

_The creature was getting so close. _

_The scene was inevitable. _

_Carol's throat froze as the zombie's hands got their grip on Sophia's tiny shoulders. She couldn't watch this, but couldn't look away. The horror paralyzed her. _

_As the Walker's hands yanked her daughter to a stop and its head began to fall forward to feast, Carol felt a new terror upon realizing she somehow felt the creature's breath on her neck as well. It unhinged its jaw to sink its teeth into Sophia's shoulder at the exact same instant Carol felt the mouth against her own skin open._

_Her vocal chords unfroze to let out a scream that shattered the surreal quiet in her head. _

_She watched the zombie's head lift from Sophia's shoulder, flesh and muscle clenched in its teeth as it fought the resistance of veins and tendons until they snapped loose to free the chunk of meat that killed her baby girl. At the exact same instant, she imagined the teeth ripping into her own skin, finding her jugular and tearing it out in a bloody burst. _

_Still screaming, her hands moved frantically up to stop the blood loss, feeling herself dying along with her child._

_Her desperate fingers felt flesh that was not her own and she turned them to claws, stabbing and scratching at the fiend that had gotten her._

It failed to sink in that the fiend in question cursed at her actions.

The arms she hadn't felt around her waist tightened and she turned her attention to them, tearing at the flesh her eyes failed to see as faintly tanned from the sun rather than leeched of color by death.

It grabbed at her hands until it had them under control then began to press against her back, bending her forward. She felt the mouth still moving at her throat and imagined it drinking of her blood rather than whispering words and sounds meant to pull her from the nightmare.

"I'm coming, Sophia," she sobbed, surrendering to the death that was oddly slow in coming. "Mama will be with you soon."

Crying into the seat beneath her doubled over body, she failed to notice the stillness that overtook her captor. The mouth moved from her neck and the weight eased from her back, but she remained slumped over in the grip of her nightmare.

She snapped out of it when she felt herself pushed until she dropped off the seat to the floor of the passenger side of the truck. Her head whipped against the dash, hard enough to clear away all traces of the images that had been playing through her mind.

Startled, her hand went to her throat, feeling for and finding no blood or gaping flesh. She then touched the back of her head, where the contact had been made, and she winced at the tenderness there that told her she had indeed hit it.

"I thought we'd settled that."

Her head snapped up at Daryl's bitter snarl, causing her to thunked her head again and nearly getting herself kicked in the face as he swung his leg from the seat to sit upright and facing forward behind the wheel of the vehicle.

Carol held her head and stared at him in confusion, knowing in some vague way how she had ended up on the floor but not really _knowing_ what had just happened or what was still occurring.

"You're supposed to be with me now," his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, hands wringing the control like he would have preferred a neck.

"I had a nightmare," she began, watching him closely as she pushed herself back on to the seat.

"You think you're the only one?" he snapped, head twisting to give her a glare that pierced something within her.

"No, I-"

"She's my ghost, too. Hell, every damned one of us are haunted by that little girl," he turned his gaze forward, staring out the windshield at the fog that covered the world in a smoky white. "I need you here, not haunting us with her."

He spoke it so softly, she could have claimed not to have heard him, but the words were heard and meant a good deal to her.

"I thought one of them had gotten me," she stared out into the bleakness and tried to explain. "I was watching the one that got her and it got me too. I felt it…on my neck. It was so real. I didn't…I _don't _want to be with her. Like her. But…I thought it was over. That it'd just happened anyway."

She sensed his gaze upon her and turned to meet it, hoping her eyes would convey the truth of her statement. They stared at one another for a seemingly endless moment, before he sniffed and turned away, hands releasing their death grip on the steering wheel.

"I'm doing my best to make sure it doesn't."

"I know," she whispered, unable to resist reaching out to touch the tensed shoulders he had turned toward her as he stared out the side window.

He seemed to jump and tense impossibly further before a breath shuddered through him and the tension eased. He began to turn toward her and she forced her hand to drop, hating how skittish he remained at such simple touches.

His hands pulled her across the seat and their bodies met in the middle with his arms wrapping tightly around her. For a moment, she was tense and frozen in his clasp, surprised by the hug, but when his hand moved to tenderly probe the bump forming on the back of her head, she melted.

"You ok?"

On the surface he asked about the bump, while on the deeper level she knew he wanted to gauge where she was after the dream.

She nodded, her head finding the crook of his shoulder and hesitantly burrowing into it as the embrace continued.

"I'm sorry," they said in unison.

Daryl scoffed while Carol smiled at the synchronized apologies.

"Guess that makes us even."


	8. Chapter 8

_**Motivation, by MissMishka**_

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><p>"No," Daryl said firmly, glaring at her across the space between them in the RV. "No way."<p>

Carol had known it a risk to suggest going with him on a scavenge, but wasn't going to have the argument in front of the group, so she ducked her head without disagreeing.

She listened to the others talking over the maps unfolded on the table and felt his heated gaze on her as she deliberately avoided looking at him. From the corner of her eye she watched him begin biting at the rough skin around his thumbnail and wondered if it was nerves or anger that fueled the agitated habit.

"Two groups," he said suddenly, contributing to the group debate. "Keep it small. One for food, one for medicines."

"We need more than that," Andrea argued. "Guns and ammunition are getting scarce. If the town has a hospital, it's bound to have a sporting goods store. We need those supplies, too."

"Hell, all we need is a Wal-Mart," he scoffed, but there was a truth to the quip.

"There should be a few somewhere around here," Carol thought aloud. "It would be more ideal than us wandering around some strange city trying to find the hospital and all these other stores to get what we need."

"An idea most everyone was bound to have had when things started going to hell," Shane snapped, the forced stillness of the cramped quarters obviously wearing thin on the man as he sat at the table, his foot tapping with barely suppressed energy. "Stores like that are likely stripped clean."

"Be worth a try, though," Rick gave Carol an encouraging nod to make up for Shane's bark, as if the idea had been hers.

"They usually build on the outskirts," Andrea nodded, coming on board for the idea. "We might be able to drive in, get close at least. Maybe we can all go in to see what we can find left. The more we have looking, the faster we can be, right?"

Daryl stopped chewing on his hangnail and Shane's foot stopped its tapping while both men turned similarly disbelieving eyes on the women.

"I was kidding," Daryl huffed.

"But it could work," Glenn spoke up. "They're right. It's pretty much everything we need in one place, most likely set apart from the center of the city and I doubt everything could be gone. Looters would have come in a panic. Hit the main aisles and emptied the shelves, sure, but how many people would have bothered with the stock rooms?"

With that, an absurd idea became sound, no one being able to argue it. In a chaos like the initial days of the apocalypse, no one would have bothered going through pallets and boxes of inventory for supplies if something was readily available on the shelves.

"How the hell we supposed to find one, geniuses?" Daryl shook his head at them. "It's not like they mark them on maps like the hospital."

"My new ride has GPS," Shane said, pushing to his feet and drawing everyone's focus. "Haven't tried it, but I don't see a reason why it wouldn't work. Those satellites are still orbiting up there. Nothing about all of this would have affected them."

Carol looked at Daryl and bit her lip, sorely tempted to both point out that he'd started this plan in motion and to just grin at his reaction to seeing what he had put in their heads. His narrowed eyes honed in on hers before she could avert them and she knew he saw her amusement.

He growled out a curse and stomped from the Winnebago.

She let him go, staying in the RV and finding herself left at the table with Maggie once the group separated to get the convoy back in motion with Shane taking the lead.

"Is it always like this?" the young woman finally asked.

The sudden break in silence caused Carol to jump slightly and look at the girl in some confusion.

"So random and disorganized?" Maggie clarified. "A quip becomes an idea that becomes the plan?"

Carol considers the questions and thinks of life among the group since leaving the quarry.

"There haven't really been many plans to date," she answered.

"What kind of life is that? Is this? It started out we were going to Fort Benning, that fell through and we were just going away and now we're off to Wal-Mart? What's after that? Has anyone thought of that?"

The agitation and worry in the young woman was palpable, raising those questions that Carol had stopped asking weeks before. She considered them, tried to concern herself with the answers.

"No," she finally said, simple and honest. "This is the world your father had shielded you from on the farm. The world Rick wanted to hide us all from by staying on the man's land. This is life now. Plans take time and time we rarely have. As for what comes next," Carol reached out to place her hands calmly over Maggie's as the girl began to fidget with a bottle of water. "We've seen enough to know there may not be a _next_."

"What are we doing then?" the girl looked to her with lost, wounded eyes.

The mother within her stirred at such pain and Carol wanted to hug the other woman to her. She wished she could shield this person from the world, but she would fail if she were to try, just as she had failed Sophia.

"We're surviving," she gave the girl's hands a weakly reassuring squeeze then turned to stare out the window at the pickup trailing behind the RV.

As she watched, his gaze went from the road ahead to the empty seat beside him for a brief glance before his head snapped forward again. He shifted closer to the driver's side door, hunching against it and biting once more at his fingers.

She hurt at seeing him alone like that and cursed whatever impulse had made her believe he needed time to himself.

His eyes met hers through the panes of glass and he immediately put his hand on the steering wheel and straightened in the seat as if unaffected. She smiled at the posturing and touched the glass, feeling its coolness and wanting the warmth of his arm or face.

"We're finding a reason to go on and we're going," she mused softly, reluctantly turning her attention back to Maggie.

"How can it be enough?"

She noticed Maggie staring forward, but didn't need to turn to know the girl was looking toward Glenn in the passenger seat of the Winnebago, tracking this progress and route on his maps.

"Instincts are all we have left now. All we've been reduced to," she began, flicking her gaze once more toward the vehicle behind them. "Your instinct was to leave the farm and come with Glenn. Trust in that. He's a good young man and he will protect you."

"Maybe I wouldn't need protecting if I had just stayed-"

"Your father was an idealist and I'd like to think he could have been on to something, but the reality is clear. I know it wasn't easy to leave. I worried when you made the choice, but it was yours to make, same as every choice we all make."

She looked back, but wasn't able to see him with the way the road curved this time.

"It's fine to sit here and question now, but you have to accept your situation as it is now. He deserves better than someone endangering his life with frets, worries and doubts. You have to be strong for him. If you care at all, then that has to be _all_ that matters."

The words were softly spoken and double edged.

Maggie bit her lip and kept her gaze on Glenn.

There was another bend in the road that allowed Carol to glimpse Daryl once more and she smiled faintly.

_He was all that mattered._


	9. Chapter 9

Credit for this chapter's subtitle goes to Walter, puppet and figment of the wacky mind of comedian Jeff Dunham.

_**Welcome To Wal-Mart. Get Yer Shit & Git Out, by MissMishka**_

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><p>They made it as far as the exit for the supercenter before traffic snarled to prevent the vehicles from going further. They were able to see the sign from the roadway, as well as the parking lot.<p>

After taking the time to get the convoy turned in preparation of a quick departure, the group reconvened in the RV to sort out weapons.

Carol gravitated toward Daryl and she wanted to apologize, but wasn't sure what for, so she said nothing as she brushed her shoulder against his arm.

He turned his hand to grab her wrist when she would have shifted away and he edged them as far from the others as the camper would allow.

"You're staying," he bent to order, speaking low and harsh in her ear.

She decided then that the only truly regrettable fact of not having ridden in with him was that they hadn't had this argument through in private.

"You said it yourself, I have to carry my weight," she turned to argue softly, sharing his obvious desire not to air grievances in front of the group. "I'm capable of going in for supplies. It's not like I'm going alone," she turned her wrist in his clasp to flirt with the idea of holding his hand, her fingers fluttering against his. "You'll be there with me."

He stopped the tickling motions of her fingers with a hard grip around her hand.

"We've no idea what this place is like," he pressed his forehead to her temple and spoke into her ear only. "I can't have you distracting me if it's a hot zone."

"It's always going to be a hot zone anymore," she twisted her face around to look at him sadly. "We're never going to know how bad the situation is. But," she raised her free hand to brush her thumb over his jaw, "if you're going, then so am I. I thought we'd settled that."

He turned from her caress, clearly upset at her using his earlier words against him. He stared past her to the group, teeth visibly gritting as his jaw flexed.

"It's just as dangerous to stay behind," she was hesitant to play devil's advocate, but felt it a necessary evil. "The vehicles are open and exposed here, waiting for you to come back. If another herd were to pass through here…"

His head snapped back for his eyes to glare icy fire at her as the words deliberately trailed off. A muscle ticked in his jaw and she could see the scenarios forming and playing in his head.

"Fuck," he bit out, his eyes promising retribution before he stomped forward to the table where all the weapons were spread out.

Carl and Dale would be the only ones staying behind, so the pickings were slim to arm everyone.

Carol watched Daryl flick his gaze over the sharp weapons, not bothering to glance at the guns. He bit his lip in consideration for a moment before he picked up a machete. He then immediately turned and shoved the weapon in her hand.

She wrapped her fingers around the hilt instinctively, feeling the weight of his gaze more than the unfamiliar metal tugging at her arm.

With his look he told her she had damned well better intend to use it before he released his own hold on the machete and she experimented with her grip on the handle while she silently told him that she would do just that.

Before they left the camper, she slid back to the bedroom and emptied the contents of her purse into the top drawer of the dresser, knowing the bag would be needed for collecting new supplies. She hated the idea of leaving any of the items behind, but there were several unnecessary things she had hoarded in the depths of the shoulder bag and this was an outing that required necessities only.

That was at the forefront of her mind as she left everything behind with the exception of a single grenade. She didn't want to think of how badly this outing could turn, but if the unthinkable were to happen, as it seemed to like doing in this world, she wanted to be prepared for them all.

As they walked away from the vehicles across the pavement to the grassy median that separated interstate from shopping center, she wondered at her resolve to tag along.

Daryl was at the front of their procession with Glenn at his side, the former watching for threats and signs of Walkers nearby while the Korean turned his skilled eye to looking for the best way to get them all in.

To Carol it looked like a straight and obvious path. Cut across the median, down then out of the dip in the earth then hit the pavement of the parking lot and run for the store to limit their exposure in the open. The men seemed determined to be more deliberate and methodical about it, though, and Carol followed where they led.

After skirting the edge of the culvert, they slowly made their way to the edge of the parking lot and found cover against the side of a parked eighteen wheeler.

The trailer bore the Wal-Mart logo and Carol thought of suggesting they break it open to see what it might contain. As she looked back across the distance they'd covered from the RV, she decided, though, that she didn't much care for the idea of rummaging without something shield them from any watching eyes.

She bit her lip as the guys communicated with a series of eye and hand signals that looked intense and emphatic, but made absolutely no sense to her. She looked to Andrea and Lori to find both women following the signals with watchful eyes and the occasional slow nod to indicate they got the gist of whatever.

Not finding any solidarity there, she looked to Maggie and found a similar frown on the girl's face as she watched the interaction. As if sensing Carol's look, the young woman turned to her with a shrug and roll of her eyes and Carol let a smile slip at someone else finding the posturing a little bit amusing in the circumstances.

"Focus," Daryl snapped suddenly from her side, startling the grin from her face. "This ain't no Sunday picnic. You pay attention or you get someone killed."

He stalked off after that, his body quick and quiet as it slid around the rear of their barricade to be the first of the group to venture out into the open. She imagined him alone and exposed and felt ice freeze her spine straight as a steel rod.

One by one they crept to the back of the trailer then burst into the open to race across the parking lot to the nearest abandoned vehicle. As soon as he had someone to cover his back, Daryl would dart again into the unknown dangers that might be on the other side of the vehicle, exposing himself to risks that had Carol a nervous wreck within minutes.

She wanted to follow him more closely, but she had somehow ended up near the rear of the rotation as they cycled across the pavement.

Daryl kept the lead, with his deadly quiet bow at the ready for threats. He was followed by Glenn or T-Dog who were followed by Lori or Andrea who were followed by Shane. Then Maggie and Carol alternated turns while Rick brought up the rear.

She was content enough with this methos as they moved quickly from cover to cover. She felt them to be nearing their goal and was pleased with the progress as she looked back at the ground they had crossed.

Then Shane suddenly ground to a halt at the bumper of a minivan and held up a hand to stop Carol when she would have raced after him to the vehicle. Everything in her froze at what that palm meant, raised and turned toward her in an obvious signal to wait.

Rick read the look on her face and he moved immediately forward to the front of the car to communicate with Shane from the cover provided by the vehicle. She slid back the side of the car, not realizing that she was shaking until Maggie put a calming hand on her shoulder. She kept her gaze on Rick as she reached up a hand to cling to the anchor offered by the girl.

Part of her wanted to cover her mouth and cry, but she was able to stifle it.

A pause in their approach did not mean Daryl was in danger, just that he had urged caution. He was overly cautious when the group was at stake. She forced herself to acknowledge that and nearly bit through her lower lip in relief when Rick finally tapped her shoulder to indicate it was clear for her to go on to the next cover.

After the minivan was a sports car and from there she skirted two downed Walkers as they moved toward a pickup truck. She nearly stumbled over those bodies, seeing the single hole of an arrow in the head of one and a more violent bashing in of the other's skull.

She wondered if Daryl had taken them both down himself or if the second could be credited to Glenn or T-Dog.

It seemed an endless repeat of those actions, the group cycling quickly for a few cars then another nerve-racking pause to sweat through. She had never really realized how damned big a Wal-Mart parking lot was. She remembered all too well how hard it could be to find a good parking space, but it had never really struck her before this endeavor just how many spaces they made available for parking.

Daryl waited inside the gaping entrance to the store, the automatic doors frozen in an open position that did not bode well for their security inside the building. He seemed to be doing a head count as each member of the group that burst through the opening after a flat out run from the last car in the handicapped space to the entrance.

All she wanted to do was fling herself in his arms and sob her exhaustion and relief, but his eyes warned the ordeal was far from over. She saw his relief, too, though, and she drifted toward him as the group took a moment to catch their breath and everyone reassured themselves that each person among them was present, breathing and unbitten.

Assignments had been given before they left the Winnebago, so no instructions were needed or given in the entryway.

After what felt like only a minute to recover and brace for the next leg heads started to nod one by one and Carol knew what each bob meant.

They were ready.

Daryl waited to give his nod of agreement until after she had given her consent and with that final indication of preparedness, Rick nodded decisively and moved to the front of the group.

The Deputy peered intently into the chaos of demolished aisles and fallen bodies. When nothing stirred, he waved his wife forward and Lori moved quickly to his side. The man took a moment to stare into his wife's eyes and the emotion conveyed by the man was enough to make Carol look away.

She found Daryl watching _her_ intently and felt her breath catch.

She sensed the others peeling off to go to their assignments. Rick and Lori went to the left, Shane and Andrea to the right, their assignments to check what remained of use on the sales floor. Glenn, Maggie and T-Dog went straight to the back to the most obvious entrance to the stock room, where they would all eventually gather.

She and Daryl lingered, though, frozen in that stare. His eyes finally darted to the empty space around them. She sensed he was ready for them to begin their assignment, the pharmacy, and she turned to look up at the layout to gauge where it would be located in this particular store. He tapped her wrist and jerked his chin to the left, indicating he'd already determined the location.

When she went to move in that direction, he stopped her with a careful hold of that same wrist. She looked back at him in askance and he stepped in close until light barely had a way to get between their bodies.

"Grip it like a bat and just hack away if you have to," he instructed quietly as he guided her hands to hold the machete firmly.

She looked into his eyes and saw his worry and wished then that she had been stronger to alleviate some of his doubts in her ability to do this.

"I won't let anything get you," she promised, hands flexing to get familiar with the weapon she held.

His jaw flexed and that muscle ticked in his cheek as he shut his eyes at her promise. She wondered how she could have possibly said the wrong thing with such words then his eyes sprang open just before he grabbed her face between his palms and he slammed his mouth down on hers.

The crush of his lips was too brief for her to get more than an impression of hot, chapped skin, but the contact hit her harder than any intimacy she'd experienced in her life.

He pulled away and stared into her dazed eyes for a heartbeat.

"Don't let anything get _**you**_," he ordered before he turned quickly away.

* * *

><p>AN: That kiss has been epic in coming and OMG, I just had to have him say *that.* Sorry for the lags in updating. Life and fannish distractions have been pulling at me a bit. I hope to get back on track and have Alamo Girl to help me with her lovely spoiler and episode talk.

We are just TWO WEEKS OUT, fanatics! 2x08 is going to break me and I cannot wait. If you haven't seen the FX UK promo, google it because the CARYL flash just shatters me and my tumblr dashboard has been loading up all day with gifs and other goodness about these two!


	10. Chapter 10

A/Ns:

Sorry sorry SORRY for the update delay. Won't make excuses, but I can come up with doozies upon request! :P

This chapter was supposed to be vastly different than it is, so (hopefully) all the ideas I had had for it will stir for the next chapter and then my muses will hopefully fall in line with what I have planned for the chapter after that. I've still no idea how long with series will be, but 4 more chapters are an absolute given and considering how my muses tend to stubbornly focus and randomly veer on topics/chapters, we could be looking at a saga. But one way or another, I will write it to a solid conclusion.

Thank you are such small words for the way all the reviews on this one make me feel, so my forever gratitude and love to my readers and everyone who's staying with this til that end. ((((((((((((HUGS)))))))))))))

Here's hoping for some Caryl interaction in Triggerfinger as a reward for everyone!

_**Machete, by MissMishka**_

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><p>Creeping further into the store led them into growing darkness.<p>

The air was stagnant with the remnants of death and decay from when the place was overrun. Blood and gore were smeared all over the floors; signs of struggle for life and the failures of those efforts.

The quiet was unearthly for this place.

Carol couldn't decide if the moment were as ominous as it felt or if she was just that creeped out.

Her hands wrung the handle of the machete as she followed in Daryl's steps to the pharmacy.

When he ground to a sudden halt and turned with a barely audible curse, she looked past him with eyes widening in fear. He tried, but failed to shield her from the overturned shopping cart.

Her throat convulsed with a reflexive gag as she clenched her eyes shut and wished she could tell herself it was just a babydoll that had gotten torn apart and abandoned in the melee.

"Don't look," he said despite it clearly being too late.

He turned and tucked her against him, putting his body between her and the unsightly remains as he skirted them past the scene.

Those words were growing all too common on his lips and she felt a pang of regret that there was no one to shield _him_ in such a fashion.

His taking point exposed him to the most horrific sights and she knew that that mangled toddler would have affected him as much, if not more than it did her. She wished that, just for once, someone would give this man a heads up to veer around or avoid a gruesome scene like that rather than Daryl telling them when and where not to look. He would probably fight or laugh off such efforts, but she hated knowing he had no buffer from the full force of this world's nightmarish images.

She kept her eyes closed as he hustled her away, trusting in him to guide her safely and having her faith rewarded when he came to a stop a moment later.

There was urgency in his hands as he turned her to face him. Her eyes opened to meet his and she saw the ghosts of the farm in his gaze. She was reminded vividly of how he had held her back from Sophia then turned her from the sight of her slain child on the ground. She had pulled from his hands too quickly at that time to see the suffering in his eyes, but she saw it now and could have wept.

"You ok?"

Torn between laughing and crying at the question, she can only nod.

He searches for the truth in her eyes, clearly expected to see the specter of Sophia there, but Carol had mostly come to terms with that tragic event he still struggled to get past. She wasn't, and hoped she never would be, unaffected by the evidence of a Walker's unending and indiscriminate hunger, but she knew this wasn't the time to break down over it.

Finding something of that thinking in her eyes, Daryl appears content on that issue and she watches him turn away to get a handle on his own reaction. She's learned him well enough to know that he wasn't getting his bearings in the claustrophobically dark and narrow aisle. The tick of muscle in his cheek and that crooked set of his jaw told her his teeth were gritting as he pushed his feelings in deep and down hard.

After a moment, he exhaled a deep breath then glanced at her over his shoulder. When he jerked his head toward the wall where they would most likely find the pharmacy, she nodded quickly, more than ready to get this chore over with safely.

They progress a few steps before he stumbles to a stop and her breath catches at the fumble. His curse is low and bitten off, but she gets the gist of it. She hears Velcro tearing apart and knows he's gone into one of his pockets for something, but she can't see what and is forced to wait with breath held for him to move again.

In moments, he's aiming the bright beam of a small LED flashlight at the floor and they see the leg that had tripped him.

Just a leg.

Evidently torn cleanly from the hip socket for by the Walker or Walkers that had eaten most of the flesh from the limb.

Carol's eyes fell closed again as she struggled to find strength to continue further into this horror house.

Fingers touch her arm and she just barely holds in a scream at the contact.

"You ok?"

His gruff question silences the cry in her throat and she gulps it down with her bile before opening her eyes.

"You can stop asking me that any time now," she grouses quietly, knowing they would get nowhere at this rate.

She sees the corner of his mouth quirk upward at her show of spark.

Before they begin moving again, she watches him slip the strap on his crossbow over his head and across his chest to leave the weapon hanging down his back. He unsheathes his hunting knife and grips it defensively in his right hand while she gulps once more, concerned at his change in armament.

The bow held threats at a distance. For him to use the knife, for him to _have_ to use the knife, a zombie would have to practically be on him and that was something she could not think about at such a moment.

She wanted to offer to hold the light for him when she saw that he had 'holstered' the bow so that his hands could hold both a weapon and the flashlight.

As he moved on, though, she knew he had made the right decision. She wouldn't have thought to take the little cautions she observed in him.

At the end of the row of shelving he paused, flashed the beam of light out into the open, shut the light off then waited and simply listened for a moment. When neither of them heard a sign of rustling toward the light, he flipped it back on, pressed his back to the shelving on their left then aimed the light and began to move stealthily to the right.

The sight of the pharmacy counter was so welcomed to her that she could have kissed it, but the blood staining the surface just made her want to cry instead.

This particular pharmacy had been one that had plastic partitioning to separate the customers from the medications. Most of it actually remained intact.

But it was the single section bloodied and busted open that ran Carol's blood cold and made Daryl curse.

Behind that counter, through that opening and in complete darkness laid their objective; the prescription grade medicine that could save their lives.

Daryl took a bracing breath and Carol tensed when he made to move forward, her hand flashing out without thinking to grab his arm.

"The fuck?"

He jumped at the contact and she knew without his words that she could get herself killed with such thoughtless moves in such a heightened situation.

"Sorry," her hand falls to her side as she kicks herself for giving into the impulse to hold him back.

"I'll be fine," he assures her, seeming to know where her head had been with the gesture.

Their eyes met and she accepted the words with a nod.

"Stay right here till I give you the all clear," he orders before focusing on doing just that.

She bites her lip and tries not to fret as he shines the light into the darkness behind the counter. Just as he had tested the waters before turned the corner of the aisle, he shut the light off and waited.

It was a longer wait this time, or at least it felt it, as he remained bent over that filthy counter, head past the broken barrier, ears sharp for any sounds of creatures stirring in the darkness.

That quiet, tense moment became a walk in the park when he deemed it safe enough to proceed, turned the light back on, bellied up onto the counter then slithered to the other side to drop out of her sight.

She watched the beam of light moving as he apparently kept low for a quick visual sweep and those minutes were endless as he remained out of her sight.

He popped up several feet into the area behind the counter and she finally released the breath she had been holding as the time dragged on. He looked back towards her, checking her safety and she tried not to show her nerves. He made a few motions with the knife in his hand, indicating, she was sure, the path he intended to take to check the rows of pills.

She distracted herself, as he moved out of her sight once more to begin on that path, by thinking how she would have to get him to explain those gestures to her. Given how often he used them, it seemed something she should know.

To this point, there were only three of his gestures that she _knew_; the 'stop' or 'wait' hand raised with the palm toward her, his 'quiet' finger to mouth move and the universally known 'fuck you' middle finger flip. Somehow, the way he flipped his finger, she read a little more into it. It seemed to say 'fuck you and the horse you rode in on,' a line she had heard long ago.

The time crept by and she forced herself to look away from the occasional flickers of light in the darkness as he did his reconnaissance.

The garden center was near the pharmacy in this store and some of the light from that more open area filtered in to the section. There were benches and space for a line in front of the counter, pushing back the aisles to let in some of that faint glow to ease the claustrophobia she thought she may be developing.

It wasn't light enough to encourage her to wander, though, she just surveyed while waiting, considering the nearby shelves where random items appeared to have either been scavenged or completely ignored.

She didn't know whether to be encouraged by that or not. Completely emptied sections meant a mad dash for items, selective emptying could mean the more useful things would only be found in the stock room, if at all. The scattering of everything on the sales floor also meant time would be needed to sort through some of the messes to find things of use.

This already felt to be taking ages too long to accomplish. Carol was leaning toward a scoop and run, itching to just get out of this place and back in route to anywhere else.

Daryl whistled to draw her attention and she left that headspace gratefully to turn toward him.

She considered the counter, for the first time realizing that she'd have to get across it.

It wasn't very high, so she put the machete down and opted for a little hop to get her butt up on the surface before scooting around until her feet dangled off the other side.

And her knees bumped up against Daryl's midsection.

He didn't step back for her to continue scooting until she dropped to stand in the pharmacy. He stayed in place, blocking her from going further and she looked up at him, startled at such an intimate proximity.

"It's not pretty," he warned her, placing his left hand against her hip as if to brace her.

Wondering how anything could be worse than an eviscerated toddler and hoping she wasn't about to find out, she meets his gaze with a confidence she feigns before nodding that she's ready for it.

He considers her for a moment before stepping to the side and nudging her hip to indicate she could hop down.

"Bag," he nodded toward her purse and she shrugged it off for him to use for the medicine collection. "Keep an eye out."

He gave her the flashlight and then moved toward the rows of pill bottles. She followed with the light aimed on him and the shelves. Like the sales floor, there appeared to be random pilfering here, as well as messes made simply from dislodge items.

Displays were knocked over in this place, signs of struggle more evident in the more enclosed space.

The smell was worse than the sight of the bodies. Even with the time that had likely passed since these lives were lost, this area had yet to air out any of the stench of death.

She breathed into her shirt while holding the light steady for Daryl to skim over labels to make his selections. She wondered how much he actually knew about what he read and how he had learned it as he moved quickly through the inventory remaining on the shelves.

They were on the last row when she heard it.

A thud; just the sound of something hitting the floor after having rolled from a higher level.

But as Daryl froze to look up at then behind her, she knew they were both thinking that things didn't just suddenly roll to the floor.

"Machete," he rose, hand extended for the weapon.

Her heart stopped as she realized she held her shirt in one hand and the flashlight in the other and the machete had been left on the counter. Given the direction of the thud, something told her that the blade was now on the floor.

He didn't curse or berate her as he came to the same conclusion.

He just moved quickly to sheathe his knife, pull the crossbow off and up to a firing position then push her behind him.

She stayed at his back without being told and kept the flashlight aimed at the space in front of them as they crept back to the counter.

It snarled at them when the light hit it, a rasp of menacing sound that Daryl silenced with a bolt he didn't hesitate to fire. The Walker dropped so quickly that she almost followed it down in her relief at the threat having been eliminated.

Her hand dropped in that flash of relief and the beam of light caught on the threat dragging its way toward Daryl as he bent to retrieve the arrow from the slain zombie. Some instinct she had never before heeded, spurred her hand to flash out, whip the knife from Daryl's hip and fling the blade downward to embed in the head of the second Walker.

Its mangled torso ceased moving forward and she almost laughed aloud at having apparently found the right spot to hit the head. She turned to find Daryl staring at her.

"I've got your back," she couldn't help but feel a little proud and smug.

She didn't imagine that the crawler had been any threat that Daryl couldn't have taken out himself well before it became a threat, but _she _had eliminated it first.

"Now get my knife back," he frowned as he reloaded the bow.

She made a face at the lack of praise and moved to obey. She switched the light to her left hand to retrieve the blade with her right, but when she pulled on the hilt, the head remained attached. Surprised that the metal had embedded that deeply she tucked the light under her arm and tried the pull again with both hands.

When the flesh still refused to release the weapon, she realized why Daryl always stepped on the corpses to retrieve his arrows. It had always disturbed her a little to watch his boot press into the face or chest of a fallen zombie, but it was required for leverage.

She put her foot on this one's shoulder to pin the remains to the ground while her hands pulled the buck knife from the skull.

It was a bloody mess and she dangled it from her fingertips with a cringe of revulsion on her face as she extended the knife toward him.

He took it with snort and eyeroll, swiping each side of the blade on his pants before slamming the knife back in its sheath, taking the time to snap it closed and secure the weapon. He then yanked the flashlight from her swept the area with its light to make sure nothing else was moving.

Without a word to her, he located the machete on the floor, picked it up and shoved it at her until she took the hilt in hand. Next, he stalked back to the shelves to retrieve her purse, a good half full with medications, and he shoved that at her.

Before she could try to make any apologies or say anything to diffuse the temper she sensed in him, he hustled her to the opening in the partition, grabbed her waist and hoisted her up onto the counter to get her out of the pharmacy.

She obeyed his urgency and scrambled back out to the sales floor, maintaining her hold on the machete throughout. She sensed that her belated retention of the weapon hadn't earned her any points in his regard.

He delayed on the employee side for a moment to snag some shopping bags before he hopped back over the barrier to get to her side.

"See what you can find of use," he orders with a jerk of his head to the left. "Be quick."

With that he went to the right, taking the flashlight with him.

As chastisements went, that was pretty darned effective.

She would live with this damned machete glued to her hand if setting it down meant he'd leave her alone in the dark.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: OnlyOneZen, thanks for the review and I have several thoughts on Carol's fate for the season. I had many of the same concerns as you, but Alamo Girl helped me find several great cast interviews by Melissa and Norman that have given me the belief that Carol and Daryl will both be in season 3. Producers have implied that the suicide by zombie aspect of Carol from the comics has just been done and it's too wasy a trap to fall into for her character to be sacrificed on the show. Carol's storyline on the series is already so vastly different from the comics, that I am optimistic and I like to believe that we will get to see her strengthen in coming episodes and hopefully find a solid footing on her own to carry her through the finale. What season 3 will bring, though, is anyones guess. Ultimately, though, this is without a doubt the most nail-biting, breath holding and finger crossing show I have ever followed because it's such an ensemble cast with drama and action to draw you in and no one is safe. I watch every new episode knowing that it may be the last for any one of this cast that I adore - Daryl, Carol, Glenn, Maggie and Rick being my current top five, with Carl just having ultimate immunity because he's precious and now that Sophia is gone I just refuse to think that anything more can happen to that boy.

If you'd like to talk more, and to any of my readers, I am a rabid and devoted fan that loves to talk about this series, so any and all feel free to PM me or if you don't have a FFN account, I'm mishkamarie on Tumblr or can be reached on AOL's email at missmishka.

Now, to this chapter, it's more what I had had planned for the last one. It is, in fact the title I had had for the last chapter, but the scene the title was chosen for got pushed back to here, so 'Machete' became the theme for the last install. I'm working on the next chapter and trying to get a few more ideas typed out before the new episode tonight and as the clock ticks, I'm putting a bit of pressure on myself so it could be that this will be all I get posted today. Hopefully my muses will co-operate, though.

_**Fire Sale, by MissMishka**_

* * *

><p>The rubber doors to the stockroom thudded against the pallet they had used to barricade the entrance and Carol's hand clenched into a fist in the depths of her purse as the continuing banging rattled her.<p>

Their time was running out and she wanted to just empty the damned bag on the floor for everyone to help her rummage through the debris for that damned grenade, but given her luck if she did do that, the grenade would roll out and under something to put the explosive out of reach.

"Not to sound like a broken record here, but if you've got a rabbit in that hat, you really need to be pulling it out now if you're going to repeat that trick."

She tasted blood at Shane's urgent yet quietly spoken words. The weight of everyone's attention on her was not helping and her hand fumbled around in the same damned section of her hobo bag, feeling the first aid kit and Chapsticks she'd found in her scavenging.

"Hate to agree with the man," Daryl said quietly, suddenly at her side. "It's getting worse out there."

If he had abandoned his post at the emergency exit to come hurry her along, then 'worse' meant that their situation had quickly gone from bad to worse to seriously fucked.

It was the Centers for Diseases Center all over again and she imagined that big damned clock on the wall running down to seconds left. If it made it to one before they blew their way out of this mess, then Walkers would be on them from all angles and none of them would make it back to the RV without carrying the disease.

"Breathe," Daryl husked into her ear as he put a steadying palm on the small of her back.

Grounded by his gesture, she obeyed, inhaling deeply, holding it in and then letting it out as her hand finally wormed its way into a new section of purse. Relief made her cry out in triumph when she finally felt the cold orb that had nothing to do with the medical supplies that filled her purse to near overflowing.

"That's my girl," Daryl declared, pressing a smacking kiss to the side of her head as he tore the grenade from her hand and ran back to the exit to hand the explosive off to Rick.

Daryl and Shane immediately turned to run away from the exit as Rick was finally able to put their plan into action. He pushed the exit open and shoved out the shopping cart that they had filled with cloths soaked in various flammable oils.

The Walkers gathered in the back lot of the store immediately resumed their efforts to gain entry at the action and Rick leveled a single-handed shot to take out the most immediate threat while he used his teeth to pull the grenade's pin and toss the ordinance into the still rolling cart as it moved deeper into the crowd of undead things. He hit the target perfectly, despite Shane's remarks about Rick's basketball skills when the Deputy had taken the most dangerous part of the plan on as his responsibility. Immediately after making sure the grenade dropped in the cart, Rick quickly yanked the door shut again and ran toward the pallet of dry dog food where Lori hid.

The explosion blew the door inward, turning it to a projectile that Maggie and Glenn had to dive away from as their barricade, comprised of a skid of toilet paper, stood little chance against a metal door flying at high speed toward them.

None of them had expected the blast to magically eradicate the gathering, they had simply needed a thinning of the herd, so Andrea and T-Dog were ready to fire upon the burning corpses that staggered in through the opened doorway. The gunshots echoed in the cavernous space and the noise seemed to agitate the Walkers trying to get to them from the sales floor.

Before those doors gave out, every member of the group was up and running full tilt out the back, an 'emergency exit' if ever there had been one. A backpack, duffel bag or tote bulging with supplies bounced against their backs or sides as they fled. Several bags were left behind in favor of getting out alive. Hands were needed to bear arms against the zombies, so excess goods in shopping bags had been readily put aside for this flight.

Carol hadn't seen the logic of this plan, but as she saw the Walkers that threatened them, she realized that the men had been right. When the Walkers had realized living people were inside the store the fiends had started appearing there as if out of thin air.

They had been preparing to leave at that time, having raided the store and stock room as greedily as they could risk, but the zombies in the dark aisles had forced them back into the warehouse which they had barricaded hastily with a pallet of electronics. The group's immediate reaction had been to race out the back of the store and most of them had.

Straight into a crowd of undead loitering in the shade of the building.

The moment had been too quick and startling for any real danger aside from arms and clothes grabbed at as they had fallen immediately back into the store. Everyone had been checked and cleared for bites or scratches, just as they would do if…_when…_ when they got back to the RV.

As she raced with the others through the heat of the burning cart and chaos of burning zombies, she knew it was better being out in the open able to see the threats coming at them rather than creeping through the store and having the things pop up from a multitude of possible hiding places inside.

The machete became an extension of her arm, if a Walker came near and tried to hold her back, she just threw out her arm and the blade cut off the reaching hands or chopped into the thing's face or head. She didn't care about killing them; just getting the hell past them alive was all that mattered.

They tore around the building to the front, guns firing by those who had them while others desperately swung out with their weapons much like Carol did the machete. Maggie wielded her baseball bat while Glenn, Lori and Daryl used axes; Daryl's having been taken from a fire emergency station when he sought a defense he wouldn't have to reload like his bow.

Bullets would only last so long, though, which was why Shane and Daryl each picked a vehicle in the front lot to run to. Rick and Andrea provided them cover as best as they could while everyone else continued to run for the highway.

Carol couldn't let herself look back to watch as Daryl tore open the gas cap on his chosen car, shoved in the red grease rag that he kept in his back pocket and set the rag on fire.

When the first explosion went off, though, everyone stuttered to a stop in their running to look back. The second car going up in flames distracted her attention for a moment and she looked wildly from one burning vehicle to the other before her eyes latched on to the quartet tearing across the pavement toward them.

She saw Lori run past her to fly into Rick's arms, but knew such a dramatic gesture would never do with Daryl. The relief Carol felt at seeing the man running toward her, though, would need an outlet but it could wait until they were safe and alone.

They'd gotten past the bulk of the threat, but reunions were premature out in the open, which was likely why Shane pulled Lori away from Rick and urged the couple to keep running away from the store. Daryl caught up to Carol, grabbed her elbow and prodded her back into motion.

They ran for the abandoned semi-trailer that had provided them cover on the way in, intending to use it for shelter to catch their breathes before getting the hell out of Dodge. T-Dog was already there, waving them on to indicate the area was safe and when Carol passed him she felt like a marathon runner that had just crossed the finish line.

She fell against the side of the trailer, doubling over to gasp for breath while trying to remember when, if ever, she had last run like that. Her heart was pounding at a pace that made it impossible for her to hear anything above the frantic beat and her desperate draws of air to refill her lungs. The muscles in her legs were drawing tight and she knew if she stayed still too long they'd seize up on her for the home stretch.

Daryl's boots appeared in her field of vision, but she couldn't hear him if he spoke and didn't feel up to straightening just yet. He took that option from her, though, when he grabbed her arms and forced her upright to press her back against the semi. She saw his lips move and didn't have to hear the words to know he was once again asking if she was ok.

Happy as she was that he was alive and whole and that she appeared to be as well, she still found herself raising her right hand and curling all but the middle finger down and presenting him with the gesture to answer that damned question.

He looked at the finger then her then the finger. Her crude gesture made him grin and then he ruffled short strands of hair on the top of her head before turning to check on the others. The playful noogie baffled her, but she didn't give it much thought as her aching side called to her to double back over so she did.

Her heartbeat and breathing eventually quieted enough for her to start hearing the conversations around her.

"So," Maggie was saying, sarcasm and worry sharpening her tone, "what's the encore? Got any more jackass ideas?"

Carol doesn't exactly appreciate the way the girl aims the question at Daryl, as if he were to blame for the adventure, but the man doesn't help his own cause when he snaps an immediate comeback to the question.

"Hell, after that, I say we go to Disney World."

Even Carol snorts out a laugh at the retort and the tension of the moment breaks with the absurdity of it.

"Don't let Carl hear that," Rick chuckles, moving to pat Daryl on the back, "he'll never stop asking us to go."

With that, their leader began moving quietly away from the trailer and back toward the Winnebago. The laughter quickly faded as, one by one, they followed Rick back to the road.


	12. Chapter 12

_**Affirmation, by MissMishka**_

* * *

><p>Time in the RV is rushed as they all move to unload their supplies in the camper before returning to their vehicles. If the Grimes' hadn't had to collect Carl and Carol hadn't wanted to refill her purse with more personal effects, she's sure they would have taken their spoils to their individual transport and floored it to get away from the chaos at the store.<p>

No threats are immediately visible on the roadway, though, so no one protests taking the moment to gather together in the Winnebago.

Carol dumps the contents of her purse on the kitchen table before moving back to the bedroom to quickly restore her collection of random items to the bag. Looking at the odds and ends she'd spilled earlier into the dresser drawer, she sees many things that she can leave behind now. Her eyes catch on the barrettes and frilly pink scrunchie that had likely been at the bottom of her purse and now sat atop the pile of things she had dumped out.

Her fingers gravitate to the bright, ridiculously girly hair tie. Her eyes mist as her fingertips skim over the stiff tulle and she's reminded suddenly, painfully, of the soft blonde locks she'll never again brush back to be bound in a ponytail by the scrunchie.

She clenches her eyes shut at memories that haven't haunted her waking hours in well over a week. Breathing in deeply, she reopens her eyes and focuses on the other items. Her fingers flick the hair tie away as if the thing has suddenly caught fire and she pokes through the pile, but her gaze finds nothing of import to be among these things at the moment.

She pushes the drawer quietly closed, surveys the empty hobo bag dangling at her hip then slips the purse strap over her head. The accessory that had once seemed so necessary is placed atop the dresser with a slow breath before she turns to leave the room. She tells herself she'll find purpose for it again, fill it with new supplies for the journey ahead, but now is not the time to sort through past and present to determine what is vital to future. Not in terms of trivial things like hand wipes versus sanitizer or hair comb versus brush.

Everyone had deposited their bags on the kitchen table when she rejoins them in the cramped space. The items overfill the surface with many set upon the floor, but when weighed against the losses they could have suffered the haul seems pitifully insignificant. No medicine, food or ammunition would have compensated her for Daryl's loss had he not made it back with her.

He seems to sense her gaze as it is drawn to him alone among the others and his eyes snaps to meet hers; narrowing after a moment at the emotions she knows she cannot keep from showing in her stare. Her return is apparently all they had been waiting for as everyone begins to shuffle around so that those with waiting vehicles can get to those rides.

Maggie settles at the table to begin sorting through their loot as Carol slowly follows the others out. On the threshold of the RV she pauses before turning back to retrieve the machete she had put on the table before emptying her purse.

"When you're done with this," Carol begins quietly when the young woman gives her a questioning look, "there are some things to go through in the dresser. Throw out So … get rid of anything we no longer need."

Understanding and sympathy flicker in the girl's gaze and she gives a firm nod. Carol breathes steadily with the knowledge that she'll find no surprise traces of her daughter the next time she goes to the sleeper section of the camper to get something.

With both relief and regret at the idea, she hurries from the Winnebago to the pickup. Daryl's starting the engine just as she opens the passenger side door to climb inside and her head pokes into the opening just in time to see the surprise he quickly masks with impatience.

"You waiting for a damned zombie to give you a boost up?" he huffs, but she sees beyond the words.

There is a tension that eases from his posture as she settles into her seat, tosses her weapon on the dashboard then draws the door closed behind her. The way his eyes jump over her face and body tell her all she needs to know of her welcome and his surprised relief that she is rejoining him in the vehicle.

Their vehicle.

Her body sinks into the bench seating, finding a groove she seems to have made in riding here all of the previous yesterday. She'd missed this spot, this place beside him, and she would have sworn that the very upholstery welcomed her back. She'd only move from this position again if it were to shift closer to him behind the wheel.

That idea holds growing appeal as he puts the truck in gear and eases into motion. They're back in the front from the shuffle of vehicles as the convoy had turned to position for a speedy departure after their mission.

"Where are you heading?"

It's the first time she's asked the question in all this time and the first time she truly wondered at the answer. She can tell, though, that he hasn't given any thought to the subject and some of his tension returns as he searches for an answer inside his head. His gaze moves from the road ahead of them to the rearview mirror and she doesn't have to turn to know what he sees; the smoke rising from the explosions that had gotten them safely away from the Walkers and the survivors piled into vehicles following behind the pickup.

"Away," is all he says, simple and clipped to discourage a follow-up question.

She has no additional questions for him, though, somehow finding their forward motion to be enough for her if it gave him focus and comfort. Quiet falls between them and his eyes return to the road ahead, but the muscles in his shoulders continue to bunch with the weight she could easily imagine bearing down on him. Her question had had the unintended consequence of pointing out that everyone else was looking to him for direction as he was driver of the lead car.

Her body responds to his tension without thinking, shifting across the seat to a closer position until her left hand is able to touch his arm. He jumps visibly under her touch and she meets his questioning glance with a weak, but sincere smile.

"We'll be ok." She moves her hand to the knotted muscles at his back and begins to awkwardly massage at his body beneath worn cotton plaid. "We got through that and we'll get through the next and we'll be ok."

"That right, Pollyanna?"

He scoffs and shifts uncomfortably under her touch to shrug her hand away. She thinks of the only thing she knows herself to need for whatever lies ahead and she refuses to be shrugged aside. They're picking up speed, but still moving at a sedate pace in deference to the Winnebago behind them so she isn't worried her next move with cause them to wreck.

"That's right," she declares, scooting to eliminate any space between their bodies and she presses a chaste enough kiss to his cheek. "I didn't lose you."

She would have laid her head upon his shoulder then and cuddled quietly to his side as he drove, but his head snaps around to prevent her from being able to settle her cheek against him. His eyes bore into hers for a moment before he expels a breath and returns his focus to the road. Within moments he's easing the truck over onto the shoulder to come to a stop in a space left between vehicles abandoned on the roadside.

He rolls down his window and waves Dale on when the RV slows in passing them by with T-Dog leaning out to ask if they were ok. Shane passes next without slowing, despite the worried way Andrea twists in the passenger seat to look back at them. Rick does more than slow, though, he stops beside them and leans across Lori to meet Daryl's eyes.

"Problems?"

"We'll catch up," Daryl replies with a jerk of his jaw to try sending the deputy on.

Even Carol can see that Rick isn't accepting that and she's not surprised when the other man puts the Cherokee in park. Daryl curses under his breath and gets out of the truck as the other man exits the Jeep. They meet at the front fender of the old Cherokee, share a quick exchange of quiet words and meaningful stares before each man nods in some agreement reached.

Rick gets back in the Jeep while Daryl moves back to stand beside the driver's side door of the truck.

"One hour, max," the deputy leans across Lori to declare. His blue eyes lift to lock with Carol's as she had scooted nearer to the open window in hopes of overhearing their conversation. "I'll give you one hour then I expect us all to be moving on from here."

She frowns at his words and watches along with Daryl as the other vehicle is put back in motion to catch up with the others, leaving them behind.

"What-" she begins in confusion as the convoy begins to fade from sight.

The opening of the door and Daryl's stepping up onto the running board cut off her words, though. She scoots back quickly to allow him back behind the wheel. He slips back inside the vehicle and slams the door shut, making her jump.

Questions form on her lips as he turns toward her, but they never make it out as he suddenly grabs her neck to pull her mouth to his. He presses against her with lips, tongue and teeth; an onslaught she isn't at all prepared for. She falls back against the passenger side door as he puts his whole being into the kiss. It's hard, fast and urgent and she can do nothing but gape under it. He takes advantage of her slack jaw to find her tongue with his own and they tangle without conscious thought on her part.

Reflex spurs her hands to his shoulders, pushing for a moment before clinging. He bites at her lower lip and she melts under him, softening to cushion the hard angles of his body. She obeys mindlessly as his hands turn her to lie on the seat until he's able to wedge himself against the crux of her legs. Through the layers of their clothing she feels his hardness, his heat and strength and it makes her arch into him with a gasp.

She's beyond questioning now as his mouth turns to her neck while she pulls air into her lungs. His right hand is on her thigh, pulling her leg over his hip as he grinds into her. Carol can't remember the last time someone showed her passion or she had felt actual want and the sudden flood of both emotions has her clawing at his shirt.

He rears back to tear open a few buttons before yanking the shirt over his head to toss it on the dash. His eyes follow the garment, locking on something on the dashboard while her gaze devours his bared torso. She sees his scars; feels a pang for the pain he's suffered in his life, but for once looks upon those past wounds as signs of his survival.

Daryl Dixon is a survivor, a fighter, and she would be one too.

She puts her hand to the most recent scar, still healing at his side, and leans up to press a kiss to the older slash marring his chest. When his flesh jumps under her touch but his focus remains away from her, she frowns and looks in the direction of his stare. All she sees is her machete and she can't fathom why he's looking at the weapon as if it were a ghost or serpent among them.

"Daryl," she says, frowning at him and wriggling in some discomfort at her current situation.

When his name fails to break his intense stare, she pushes herself up against the door and moves her hand to his cheek to forcibly turn his attention back to her. She repeats his name softly, worry overshadowing want in her gaze as he slowly refocuses on her.

"_I_ could have lost _you_."

His words are quiet and gruff and he tries to muffle them in the crook of her neck, but she hears them clearly as he wraps her in his arms with an urgency far different than mere moments ago. His hands press against her back, fingers curling inward with bruising strength and she returns the embrace without hesitation; finally understanding his need to break away from the others.

She wraps her arms around his neck to hold him tighter to her when she feels the first drop of moisture touch her skin and roll from her shoulder toward her chest. Later he'll claim it to have been sweat and she'll allow the excuse; agreeing that the cab of the truck did grow quite hot as they sat unmoving on the roadside.

In that moment, though, she clenches her eyes shut to keep her own relieved tears at bay.


	13. Chapter 13

_**Gestures, by MissMishka**_

* * *

><p>Within hours they're back with the group and have moved on to yet another campsite.<p>

No one questions their delay, but Carol blushes at the grinning glance she gets from Andrea as they move to do their part in setting up for the night. It's clear that they all assume that only one of two things could have occurred during their hour away from the group; they fought or their fucked.

Carol can understand their logic and thinks the latter very likely would have happened if Daryl's thoughts hadn't overwhelmed his baser instincts in the aftermath of their 'shopping' expedition. The truth, though, is something she'll never share with anyone, no matter how close she feels to these people. That time together with Daryl on the side of the interstate was too private for them both to ever share it with anyone else.

She also doubted than anyone would believe the peace that Daryl and she had found in just holding one another in the cab of that truck.

Unbidden, her eyes seek him among the others and she shields her gaze from the glare of setting sun as she locates him atop the RV. They have an assembly line going to get their equipment unloaded, with Dale unstrapping the supplies from the roof to hand to Daryl who then hands it to T-Dog on the ladder or drops it to down to a waiting Glenn depending on the size and weight of the object.

As if sensing her attention, he pauses in mid-pivot to hand off what looks to be her tent to T-Dog and they share fleeting smiles before the other man clears his throat for the next item to keep their work moving. She can't see it, but somehow Carol knows that being caught in the moment embarrasses Daryl and she can imagine the red tinting his cheeks as he shoves the tent at T-Dog then turns for the next item from Dale.

She moves into the RV where Lori and Maggie are arranging supplies for an evening meal. They greet her with distracted nods then seem to freeze at realizing who has just climbed into the Winnebago.

"I think we should try staying in some actual _place_ one of these days," Carol says to break the odd moment, feeling like she'd maybe walked in on them talking about her. "I really don't see how finding a home, hotel or building along the road to hole up in for the night can be any more dangerous than all this work of setting up camp in the middle of nowhere."

"There aren't many places that haven't been destroyed by vandals or Walkers that I've seen," Lori observes, poking around in the cupboards to familiarize herself with the re-arranging Maggie has done to work in their new supplies. "But if we see one, I'm all for claiming it. God knows, I'd love to sleep in an actual bed again."

Carol slips past them as the two begin discussing the possibilities of the topic she'd introduced, moving into the sleeping section to reclaim her purse. The bag is still empty atop the dresser, but when she opens the top drawer she finds everything inside it to be placed in an orderly fashion. Without any girlie hair-ties to distract her focus.

She slings the bag over her shoulder and contemplates the contents of the drawer, seeing her old things mixed with other odds and ends from the group. Her brush, nail file, nail clippers and scissors are the first things to go back in the purse.

"I wasn't certain by your request whether you wanted to keep anything in particular or not," Maggie says from the doorway behind her. "I treated most everything like the new stuff from the store and sorted it by purpose. You'll find bits and pieces all over, but I can get you anything real quick if you make a list of what you'd like back."

"No," she says, smiling to assure that the girl had done the right thing. "I'd like to start it again from scratch. Find what I really need to carry with me."

The young woman nods her understanding and turns to leave Carol to her task. She knows it can and probably should wait until after camp is established, but she finds herself compelled to have the familiar wait of the hobo bag back against her hip before she can work to bring any kind of order to the group's settlement for the night.

Eventually the shuffling on the roof stops, telling her that the men have unloaded the equipment from the RV and the quiet conversation fades from the kitchenette to indicate that the women have moved outside to either begin cooking or see to the raising of the tents.

Carol takes advantage of the isolation to raid the bathroom and kitchen for her remaining supplies. Deodorant for herself and Daryl, a new pack of wet wipes, a few sticks of Chapstick from the bathroom, some MREs and snacks from the pantry then a switchblade and grenade from their weapons cupboard are her main finds. Several other odds and ends find their way into the bag, just as more will join them over time as things catch her eye as of possible use, but the inventory is of little matter. The bag is heavy with goods again and she breathes in relief with the knowledge that she could run with it and survive for a while if necessary.

Clinging to the strap across her chest she exits the RV and finds the camp complete. No one gives her grief for not helping and she imagines Maggie's helpful hands have much to do with that.

Shane and Carl walk in from the woods with armfuls of wood to start a fire in the ring of stone that Andrea and T-Dog appear to have just finished. The boy laughs up at the man as he playfully jars the deputy's hat Carl keeps forever perched atop his head.

Rick looks up from a discussion with Dale at the sound of his son's laughter and after a moment the deputy grins.

Glenn moves to Maggie's side at the table they'd set up for dinner preparations and the girl dips her finger in the sauce she's mixing and presents the digit to her boyfriend. The young man blushes and clearly has no intention of sucking the finger clean for a taste-testing of the mixture as Maggie had intended, but a quick taunt from Miss Greene changes the cause of color on the Asian's face before he opens his mouth for the finger.

She feels Daryl behind her, but doesn't look away from the group as his presence warms her.

"Freaky for it to be so normal," he husks quietly, touching her hip as if she needs such a gesture to alert her of his presence.

"I think it's wonderful," she counters, leaning back against his shoulder as his hand drops away from her. "Like a family reunion or something. You can almost forget…"

"No," he cuts in, suddenly moving away from her, "I can't forget."

He stalks over to Rick and Dale, exchanges a few terse words before shifting the crossbow from his shoulder and turning towards the woods. She frowns after him, worried at the show of temper but not overly surprised at it in contrast to his recent tenderness.

The man would never just be one way, not even with her. He was a river of varying depths and hidden currents and she knows she'll have to continue wading in carefully to keep her head above water.

"I'll keep him out of trouble," Andrea says, suddenly appearing in front of her.

She nods and smiles at the unspoken question in the blonde's words. With a smile and nod in return, Andrea pulls the Ladysmith from the small of her back, checks the clip and then calls out Daryl's name to stop him before he disappears to far from sight. He pauses long enough to tell her to hurry up if she's tagging along then continues on his way while the woman jogs to catch up.

They have a good hour or two before dark, so Carol isn't worried about them, especially being together in the woods. She knows they'll watch each other's backs and she has no concerns about the other woman making a move on Daryl. Despite the unlikelihood of it all, the hunter has shown on multiple occasions that he looked to the blonde as a friend and comrade in protecting the group.

How Carol has managed to catch his eye in ways Andrea did not was a mystery of this world that she hopes to never unravel.

Wanting to do her part in having a nice, hot meal waiting for them when they got back from their hike or hunt, whichever it turned out to be, Carol moves to her tent to put away her purse to work unhindered by its weight.

She can tell immediately that Daryl had set up the shelter. His things are placed in a neat pile in the back left corner of the tent. Their sleeping bags are spread open against the right wall, hers laid flat against the ground with his over it.

Her pulse quickens at this obvious sign of how he wanted them to sleep this coming night; together, atop her bedding and under cover of his. Licking her lips with a nervousness that she knows is ridiculous to feel without him present, she shrugs off the strap of her purse and moves to settle it in the corner beside his duffle.

Her palms grow moist at the implications of their things so intimately nestled in the shelter and she rubs her hands over the thighs of her pants to dry the flesh. As she turns to leave the tent a flash of something atop their bedding catches her eye.

Tilting her head curiously to the side, she moves closer. The object is gold and the flash of bright metal had caught her eye. As she bends toward it, it takes shape in her vision as a necklace. Her fingers hover over the heart pendant, knowing it must be from him and meant for her, but disbelieving at the presence of such a gesture.

After a moment, she picks up the delicate rope chain and lifts the jewelry to study it carefully.

It's beautiful. Easily 14k, if not higher quality gold. She knows it had to have come from Wal-mart, so it might not be the most expensive or elaborate bauble to be given by a man, but the idea that he had made a detour to the jewelry counter on their mission to get her a necklace said more than a million dollars in diamonds could have.

She's torn in the moment, staring at the jewelry. He clearly meant for her to find it, otherwise he would have kept it hidden until later, so he wasn't comfortable actually 'giving' her the gift, but was she supposed to just take it? She would like for him to put it on her, but somehow can't envision him in any kind of sentimental scene like they used to put in commercials for gift giving around Valentine 's Day.

She, for one thing, has no long, flowing locks of hair to pull to the side to keep from getting tangled in the clasp as he drapes the necklace around her neck and fastens it before dropping a tender kiss to her exposed nape. For another thing, Daryl still tended to fumble with the gentler gestures and he'd likely break or tangle the chain while trying to put the necklace on her without his hands touching her skin.

Unable to replace the bauble on their bedding and just walk away from it, Carol carefully undoes the lobster-claw clasp and puts the chain around her neck. With familiar ease, she refastens the latch to secure the necklace upon her. The fingers of her left hand trace over the links of metal against her skin while she raises the pendant with her right hand.

It's a big heart, but not so big as to be gaudy; comparable to the size of a quarter. She wonders how he had come to chose it; if he had put forethought into it and meant to convey some deeper message with it.

Was he implying that she had a big heart? Did he imagine it to be a heart of gold like some hooker of Western lore? Was her heart too big? Was he interested in having her heart given to him in exchange for this beautiful gift?

_Were there any shrinks left in this world that could stop her from having such random and neurotic thoughts over what might be a kind, but ultimately empty gesture on the man's part?_

Shaking her head at her own thinking, she forces her hands to drop to her sides and moves from the tent. She tells herself that she'll just wait and see what he does or says when he returns and sees her wearing it.


	14. Chapter 14

**__**Whoo HOO! Neither I nor this series are dead, thank you AMC for the Walking Dead S2 marathon this weekend to remind me of such things. Been so long since I wrote thanks to real life that I feel quite rusty, so I apologize if I stumble a bit getting back into Carol's mindset in the series. Can't promise when the next update might be, but with much delay, here is a new chapter!

**_Fidgeting, by MissMishka_**

* * *

><p>"I don't remember seeing that in your things."<p>

Carol drops the pendant as if burnt as Maggie's words startle her from her thoughts.

"It's pretty," the young woman says with a smile when Carol can't think of a reply.

No response seems required of the observation or compliment as Maggie proceeds to return her attention to the meal they're nearly finished making. It smells delicious and Carol's eyes return to the perimeter of their clearing in search of Daryl's returning form. Her fingers again go to her new necklace to fidget with the heart as she had once done with the cross she had left behind with Sophia.

"What do you suppose set him off?" the woman asks, seeing the direction of her gaze.

She has no answer that she wishes to voice and gives Maggie a shrug at the question. If she were to hazard a guess, she would say that it was her 'family reunion' comment possibly bringing up memories of how different Daryl's family had been from the playful scene they'd been watching between Carl and Shane or the intimacy of Glenn and Maggie's exchange. Or it could have been her allusion to being able to forget the nightmare that the world has become as she had watched the others going so calmly and almost happily about their routines.

The reason for his stalking off doesn't matter, though, so long as he comes back unharmed.

Her fingers curl around her new talisman, imprinted the shape of the heart pendant into her flesh as she they all tense at the rustle of trees nearby. Hoping it to be Andrea and Daryl returning, she bites her lip to stifle a worried cry as Lori rushes to protect Carl and Maggie grabs her arm to pull her back toward the safety of the RV.

As the men shuffle into a protective formation around the perimeter where the noise came from, they all hear the sound of voices; casual conversation passing back and forth from Andrea to Daryl and the tension fades from everyone.

The quickness of their reactions is reassuring. If it had been a zombie stumbling upon them, the group would have taken out the threat without blinking an eye. Their cohesion as a unit in this world was comforting. Their instincts were to protect one another and that instinct grew stronger with each passing moment they spent together.

She smiles at Maggie as the girl eases the grip she has on Carol's forearm once the pair strides back into the camp. Carol gives that hand a gentle squeeze as silent thanks for the thought before she urges the fingers to release her completely so she can approach the man.

Shane's still fingering his Glock like he doesn't trust the duo to have come back to the camp without friends and Carol resists the urge to roll her eyes at the man. Andrea doesn't bother to resist when she sees the gun in his hand. The blonde raises her hands in playful surrender.

"We come in peace," she scoffs, jeering at the officer until he lowers the weapon, clicks the safety back on then tucks the gun back into the waist of his pants.

She lowers her hands and turns to exchange a look with Daryl; something in her expression indicating that Shane may have been a topic of discussion between them.

Carol can't help but wonder what else came up while they were out. She's not jealous of the blonde, she reminds herself, but she can't stop herself from being envious of the knowledge that he _talks_ to the other woman. Daryl communicates with her, says words here and there to tell her things, but she knows there's something different when he talks to Andrea. Something that bonds them in a camaraderie that he doesn't have with any of the others.

She wonders at it; if the blonde evokes memories of something in his past and that leads her to wanting to question and learn his past for herself. Does Andrea know the reason why he talks to her as he does no other? Does she know something of his life before the Dixon brothers found the group gathering at the quarry?

Maybe Carol should try talking to the woman. It always seemed a bit helpful to Daryl the few times that she knew of them having had a private moment to converse.

Or maybe she should just man up and try actually talking to Daryl herself, but therein lay the dangers of asking the wrong questions and getting answers she may never be ready for. The only thing more worrisome than the thought of what he may talk about with Andrea was the thought of what all he might reveal if she shone too much light on his darkness.

Dale might offer her some better insight into the situation than talking to Andrea, but Carol finds herself to use him as a sounding board on this topic. She knows she can rely on him for discretion as well as an open ear and articulate mind to air her thoughts to, but she doesn't know what thoughts to voice yet.

She's wearing a necklace that Daryl presumptively taken from the store for her, but she has no idea what the bauble means in his mind. They had kissed just hours ago, embraced and clung together with the relief of surviving the group's Wal-Mart expedition. She had been travelling with him since they left the farm, clinging to his back like a second skin on that motorcycle and alone in the cab of the truck with him. That first night they had slept side by side in her tent, the night before she had slept in his arms in that pickup.

He had set her tent up with the bedding laid out in the obvious intent for the structure to be shared by them both that night.

_Is it presumptive of her to think of them as __**them**__?_

Until she's able to figure that out for herself, she's not about to go discussing the possibilities with anyone else.

Her fingers are fidgeting once more with the necklace as she finally steps to his side and the motion of her hand draws his attention to her.

His eyes flicker from the pendant to her eyes then back to the necklace before dropping away to stare at the ground as a slight grin touches his lips.

"I don't see any squirrels," she says to break the silence.

"Wasn't hunting," he replies, shifting under her gaze to shrug the strap off his shoulder to lower the crossbow he'd apparently had no need or intention to use while out in the woods.

She doesn't ask what he had been doing, just reaches for the weapon and moves to place it in their tent while he goes to have a brief talk with Rick. The domesticity pleases her; having her man home safe at the end of the day and seeing his gear put to rest for the night alongside her own possessions. Regardless of what anything else meant in this world, settling his crossbow down inside the tent made it _theirs._

She takes that confidence from the sight of their meager possessions intermingling in the structure and moves to find him settling down beside the fire as Lori and Maggie began to serve the dinner that they had prepared. Carol goes to collect two empty plates and see them both filled with portions of canned meat and vegetables, insuring a good plateful for Daryl. She hands the larger portions to him and finds a seat waiting for her at his side along with an unopened bottle of water to match the one he was currently drinking from.

There is no need for words or backstory when they have their simplistic harmony like this. They care for each other in these little ways; make room for one another in their lives and each allow space for the other in their personal bubbles that no one else is allowed to penetrate.

She balances her plate on her legs, bends to open her water and take a drink then lightly touches her necklace like saying a prayer before she begins to eat.

"You like it?"

He isn't asking about the mouthful of canned ham heated in Maggie's flavorful mix of honey, mustard and sugar that she rushes to swallow at his lowly pitched words. Still digesting, she can only give him a rather shy sideways glance before nodding in answer.

"It's beautiful," she whispers once the food in properly consumed. "Thank you."

Their eyes meet briefly then fall back to focus on eating; the campfire being far too open a place for her to express her feelings at his gesture.

Conversation ebbs and flows around them, some of it rising to encompass and draw them in like the tide as the meal passes. Carol discusses food with the women; their supply of clothing, cleaning supplies and chores for the following day once they breakfast. The men discuss ammunition, guard duty and night watch shifts with Daryl.

Andrea breaks the gender norm by voicing concerns about their arsenal and volunteering for the first watch. Then Maggie stirs up a storm by tossing out the question grenade of, "So where are we going now?"

Carol listens for the first hour of heated discussion where someone will make a suggestion that no less than two others in the group immediately tear to pieces. She doesn't bother to float out any ideas because she has none on the topic. She goes where Daryl goes. He's her lifeline in all of this and the necklace her new anchor. He's said nothing to this point and she finds herself with little interest in what he may have to say to the group.

Suddenly weighted with exhaustion from the day, she pushes to her feet to gather the plates they had set aside after eating. She quietly makes a circle of the group to collect all the dishes and carries them into the RV to scrub clean in a sink full of water from jugs with a splash of dish liquid. Through the window she sees the argument rise and fall with new suggestions. If she focused she could hear the ideas wafting in through the open door of the camper, but she really has no care for it. She doesn't understand why they get so worked up over it.

If all the events up to now have taught her one thing, it's that no destination is safe from the threat or presence of Walkers. Sure, they may find a place to hold up for a while, but they had to be ready to move on quickly because they could only afford to fight so long and so hard to hold on to a piece of this world. Any one of them could be lost in such an attempt and it wasn't worth that to her. True, they needed shelter and food for the coming winter, but they needed one another more and their fighting over this matter just shattered the harmony she had taken such pride and comfort in earlier.

With the dishes done, she turns from the window and exits the vehicle. Moving quietly and without any acknowledgement from the group she returns to Daryl's side long enough to give his shoulder a brief squeeze.

"I'm turning in," she tells him quietly before loosening her hold on him to go to their tent.

He surprises her by reaching up to take her hand in his before she's pulled it away. Without a word to the others, he stands to follow her.

"Daryl," Rick fairly snaps as they begin to move away from the group, "we're not done here."

"And you ain't ever gonna be at this rate," he pauses to snap back. "All you're doing is arguing in circles round and round the same damned bone. We need food; we need shelter. Take out the map and someone throw a dart for all I care, you don't need me here to judge your pissing contest."

"Daryl," Lori rushes to cover Carl's ears like 'pissing' is the epitome of profanity and therefore completely unacceptable for speech within miles of her son's young ears.

"Been a long day, boss," he ignores the chastisement and keeps his focus on Rick. "Whatever you say is good enough for me. Long as I've got my bow and my bike I can do my part to keep up alive and moving. Figure that outta be enough."

Carol wonders where she falls in that equation; where, if at all, she ranks with the bike and bow.

He places his hand in the small of her back, a gesture that warms her as it seems to guide and protect while urging her toward their shelter.

"I'll take my watch in a bit. It you're all still up yammering on this topic, I'll settle it for you then. We'll do it the Dixon way; rock, paper, scissors to your face if you don't do what daddy fucking says."

Lori's second scandalized cry of "Daryl" follows them into the shadows until they're zipped into the isolation of the tent.


	15. Chapter 15

_**Falling, by MissMishka**_

* * *

><p>Stepping into the tent with Daryl's hand still at the small of her back feels surprisingly intimate.<p>

Carol can't help but wonder at why he left the others with her unless he is thinking of _them_ turning in for the night; enjoying some privacy within the confines of their shelter.

She thinks she's ready for that, remembering the kisses from earlier and the weight of his body against hers in the pick-up, but something in her stutters at the thought of having sex with him just then. There's an excitement with her at the thought; a definite want, but there is also some worry.

There is _always_ some worry inside her head and she curses the nagging doubts that have botched so damned many of her life choices.

His hand drops away to close the flap after they've stooped to enter the tent and she fiddles with the pendant while blinking at the darkness at the faint light from the campfire is shut out of their shelter.

She remembers seeing a camping lantern set in the corner with Daryl's supplies and moves suddenly to turn it on only to slam into the obstacle of his body as he has apparently moved to do the same thing. Her momentum topples him over and she shrieks as her balance leaves her and she falls into the fragile canvas wall. She holds herself back enough to keep from testing the strength of the material against her full weight and manages to twist so she collapses into a lovely mess atop Daryl.

He grunts a few times at the various impacts his body endures and her self-criticizing voice is having a heyday in her head, laughing and lecturing over the awkwardness that she was years too old to be displaying. She thanks the darkness for hiding her blushing face from him even as the pitch black keeps her from being able to do anything other than fumble for some way to untangle them.

"Much as I appreciate the enthusiasm," Daryl drawls before grunting as her hand pushes down on something that was definitely flesh based, "hell," he breaks off whatever he may have been about to say.

Before she can apologize, his arms wrap around her, bringing their bodies chest to chest as he flips them over toward their sleeping bags. He secures her beneath him, hands and elbows pinned to her sides and out of harm's way then he reaches out to find the light and turn it on.

"I'm so sorry," she bursts out the second the lantern flicks on.

"Nothing to be sorry for," he assures her with a grimace. "Next time you wanna tumble me in the dark, though, maybe try and aim us for the bedding instead of my gear."

He shifts from atop her and twists to look behind himself.

"Think I took an arrow in the ass," he mumbles.

She sees him run a hand over his backside as if to check for any protruding weaponry then she buries her face in her hands in mortification.

_Oh, yes,_ her inner voice condescends, _there's going to be tons of sex __**now**_.

The thought startles a single snort of laughter from her and she bites her lip to keep from any others from coming out. She parts her fingers to peer through and see the damage of her bumbling.

Daryl's eyes are staring right back at her when she focuses and she flinches like a kid caught in the cookie jar.

She drops her hands, no use hiding her blush now, and scoots back to sit up.

He's sitting back against the flap, apparently without an arrow in his ass or any serious injury from it if he had landed on one. He arches a brow at her, silently prompting her to let out whatever she was holding back with her mouth clamped shut.

It's too close to call whether a laugh or apology will come out if she tries to speak, so she just clears her throat and looks around the tent like it had the secrets to the world weaved into the canvas.

"We'll get used to it, you know," he said suddenly as she has her attention on the ceiling.

She drops her gaze and refocuses it on him as he shifts to begin unlacing his boots.

"Small space," he goes on to explain without taking his attention from the task of removing the boots. "Bound to bump into one another now and again," he glances up with a wry twist of his lips and a playful glint in his eyes. "Seriously, though, next time, bump toward something softer."

Laughter wins out at that and she lets her lips part for the chuckle to come out. Her eyes shift to the area she'd knocked him into; she sees the collection of supplies he'd landed on and the chuckles grow louder because an arrow really was the least of what he could have ended up injured by. It's not funny to think of him hurt, but with them both sitting there none the worse for wear, the past few moments are pretty funny in a painfully not at all funny way and she can't stop laughing.

He lets her go on until tears are running down her face and she feels even more foolish, but after she's wound down and wipes the tears away she finds him staring at her with an expression she can't identify.

"You," he voice seems to catch on something in his throat and he looks away while he clears it. "It's nice to hear you laugh," he says softly. "You should do it more often."

"There isn't really a lot to be laughing about anymore," she whispers back, the truth of that thought wiping all trace of humor from her.

"Has there ever been?" he scoffs; rising up a bit to take off the knife on his belt followed by the small arsenal he somehow managed to hide on his person.

She watches him move; careful, quick and efficient. With the weapons shed his hands go to the buttons of his shirt then pause. She can tell he had slipped back into rituals he performed before bedding down alone for the night and knows he's remembered that he's chosen to share a shelter with her.

Their eyes meet and something passes in the glance; permission sought and granted without either of them really thinking about consequence.

His eyes drop from hers to the buttons on the shirt and he focuses on unfastening each one when she knows he usually just undoes one or two then yanks the thing off. It's a stall tactic; nerves.

She toes off her shoes and sets them off to the side before twisting around to turn down the lantern as he finally shrugs off his top. He tosses the garment atop his supplies and moves to the button on his pants. She flicks the light off completely; trusting his reflexes to get him into the 'bed' without injuring either of them.

Her hands go to the hem of her shirt and twist there, unsure if she should remove it or not. As a compromise she reaches underneath and unfastens her bra to tug the confining article off without removing her top; a skill only a woman can manage. She hears the heavier sound of his pants landing and wonders if there's anything else for him to take off and if he intends to take it all off.

For comfort, she tells herself, she pushes her pants down then off before she scoots over to the wall to give him room to lie down next to her. She waits in the darkness in her tee shirt and panties, feeling more naked and exposed than if she'd stripped before the whole group in broad daylight; which seems so silly.

The time that it takes him to join her makes her wonder if he feels the same way; if he's as nervous.

When he finally moves he lifts the edge of the top sleeping bag to slide underneath and she realizes she's lying atop it like an idiot. As he's sliding smoothly under the cover, she begins to scramble backward so she can pull an edge out from under herself to slip under.

Her flailing knee hits flesh and she freezes, waiting for the Earth to open up and just swallow her now already. _Please_. Before she maims him this night.

His hand reaches out to settle on the offending knee; palm curling over the kneecap and fingers just resting against the softness of her skin. The touch jolts her brain, but her body stays locked up; remembering all too well times when she had accidently bumped or jarred Ed and gotten beat for her klutziness.

"Relax," is all Daryl says, giving her knee a squeeze before letting her go.

He tugs the cover out from under her then waits for her to settle back down before he lays it across her.

She lies on her back; mentally kicking herself for how this is going while he assumes a similar position beside her. Side by side under the covering she can feel fabric against her upper thigh and knows he's wearing his boxer shorts.

It surprises her because he had seemed to be stripping but then it really _doesn't _surprise her because Daryl Dixon isn't the type to just crawl into bed naked on such short acquaintance. That's the same kind of knowledge and reservation that had stayed her own hands from taking off her top. They were far from a point where they could be that casual with nudity; if ever they _could_ be comfortable with it, alone or with each other. Too many scars inside and out for each of them.

Still, she finds herself unsettled by the barrier of the underwear.

"I'm so bad at this," she whispers, feeling a ridiculous urge to cry just because he wasn't naked which meant he wasn't getting her naked and if she wasn't naked then they clearly weren't going to have any of the sex that she doesn't even know if they're ready to be having to begin with and now she really wants to have sex because she's bumbled this whole scene like some skit from a slapstick comedy and if they could just have sex all that would be forgotten in memory of the intercourse. But then she considers all the ways she usually messes up sex and how hard it always was for her to climax in an ideal setting like a locked bedroom with and nice big bed and she thinks maybe its best that they don't ruin whatever they're building between them by bringing sex into it.

"Jesus, woman," Daryl sighs, turning towards her and she jumps when his fingers find the side of her face in the darkness. "I can hear the wheels turning and can tell they're taking off in the wrong direction." His fingers smooth around her head until he's cradling the back of it in the palm of his hand. "There is no being _bad_ at _this_ because all of _this_, whatever we're doing right now is pretty damned good to me."

His eyes are intent gleams in the darkness right in front of her and she uses them to guide her hand to the side of his face. She doesn't want to know what his past relationships were like to make him say and _mean_ something like that, but she does want him to know that he deserved better.

"I don't want to disappoint you," the words break coming out of her throat.

"You gonna kick me out of this tent?" his tone is sharp; allowing no nonsense.

"No," her fingers curl into the nape of his neck to hold him in place and emphasize her rejection of that idea.

"You gonna leave me?"

She shakes her head rapidly to answer "No" to that question.

"You planning on opting out any time soon?"

"I never wanted that," she frowns in the darkness. "I-"

His mouth silences her before she can even form the complete thought and some of the worried tension leaves her at the rough press of his lips over hers. He wasn't the best kisser she had ever encountered; not skilled or practiced with it, but God help her he was passionate.

An intensity spreads from him to her and feeds back into him through their lips and tongues and hands and she finds herself twisting to twine around him to get as close as humanly possible with clothing on.

"Then you could never disappoint me," he breathes out against her shoulder when they break apart for air.

The fragment takes a few seconds to make sense in her hormone addled brain then finally clicks into place with his previous questions and warmth floods through her at his reassurance. Her foot skims up his leg as her fingers caress what she imagines is his forehead and she bites back the urge to do something crazy and wildly premature like speak the love bubbling in her veins.

Kissing him again helps stifle the urge to speak so she does it again and again until they're panting for breath; hands going from groping to grasping as their bodies grind together. His right hand stays on the back of her head, cradling it throughout while he's rolled atop her to press between her legs and grip her hip with his left hand to hold her tight against him as he thrusts against her.

The friction from his dick wedged between them and moving hard over her pussy is making her toes curl, but she doesn't imagine it to be as pleasing to him.

She wants to shove her panties off and pull him free of his boxers to take his length inside and feel those frantic, forceful jerks of his hips driving his dick in deep, but his fingers are curling bruises into the flesh of her thigh as he lifts her leg to angle her closer and she can't do anything but cling and buck up against him then convulse when he suddenly breaks away from kissing her to bite out a curse against her throat just before his body goes briefly still; the full weight of it bearing her down against the bedding and earth beneath the tent.

He goes quiet as he comes, barely even seeming to breathe as his body goes from rigid as steel one moment to shuddering like a fevered man the next. His arms lock against her, holding her tight as his forehead digs into her shoulder and his back arches while his legs flex to shove his hips harder and closer against her core. She came from the friction and the thought of how it would feel without the clothing between them; with that driving, pounding push of his cock into her body as his body sought to satisfy the primal urge to procreate by reaching deep into her core to fill her up with his seed.

She isn't quiet as the orgasm tears through her because it does just that; _tears_ through her. It's an electric shock that runs from her clit to her brain and then explodes like a firework to spread throughout her entire being and it makes her arch and twist and buck and grind beneath him to get closer and more and harder and she pants and gasps and begs for just that, "harder" and "more" until he covers her mouth again with his.


	16. Chapter 16

_**Blush, by MissMishka**_

* * *

><p>Carol wakes when the lantern flicks back on. The sudden brightness doesn't penetrate her closed eyelids as effectively as Daryl's pulling away from her does.<p>

"Sorry," he pauses in sliding out from under the cover to give her a quick glance before his eyes skitter away from the glimpse of her nakedness in their 'bed.' "Didn't mean to wake you."

She tucks the sleeping bag around her for coverage as he moves towards his duffle bag to sort out clean clothes for himself. She tries not to stare at his naked body because he's hunched in on himself in a way that tells her he's not comfortable yet with her eyes on any and every part of him, but feminine instinct demands that she check out the butt she'd finally gotten a chance to fondle a bit before they fell asleep.

It's not much; no excessive musculature or roundness, just a slim, lean handful. Much like the entirety of the man that was Daryl Dixon.

She shifts around him to get to her own things in search of a fresh outfit to put on to join him in starting the day with the predawn watch over camp. Trying to hold up the bulky shield of the sleeping bag really doesn't aid her in getting much of anything accomplished so she drops it with the fatalistic thought that he'll just have to get used to seeing her naked if they're going to do _this_ and if he can't handle it…

She's not going to think of that possibility.

His eyes touch her back like fingertips, skimming from her head down her spine to the curve of her hips and swell of her backside. The eyes dart away to refocus on the clothing crammed into his bag when she peeks over her shoulder to try and gauge _his_ thoughts on _her_ butt.

"Got a few hours yet till everyone wakes," he says; quiet and gruff after clearing his throat. A few times. "Go back to sleep."

She finds what she needs within the neatly folded confines of her suitcase and sets the small pile of clothing aside before she shuts the case with only a shake of her head to acknowledge that he had spoken.

"Wouldn't be able to sleep," _without you_.

She moves to the girlishly pink backpack that she should probably replace with something unassociated with Sophia, but the bag is functional and she barely flinches anymore when she has to get something out of it.

_Barely_; still her fingers flex as they move to the tab of the familiar zipper to get inside the pack. She remembers the countless times she had tucked homework and brown paper bagged lunches inside; double-checking that her daughter had all textbooks and assignments at the ready before seeing her off to school. Remembers more recently turning it into a mini-survival kit for Sophia with rations and clothes and first aid supplies just in case the worst should happen and the girl get separated from Carol. She'll always kick herself for never considering the eventuality of her child being separated from both mother _and_ backpack in this world. For not having some forethought to get one of the men to try and teach Sophia how to defend herself; to hide and keep herself safe if she ended up lost.

Her eyes clench shut along with her fists at the recurring condemnations that tear through her when she allows herself to think about anything other than what it was she needed to retrieve from the bag.

She startles from her inner turmoil when familiar fingers pry the backpack from her hands. Her eyes open and turn to find Daryl glaring at her.

"Unless you want this to be another abusive relationship, you're gonna have to stop beating yourself up," he snaps then begins to dig in the backpack before realizing one important thing. "What the hell you got in here?"

"I was after the wet wipes," she says, giving the answer he truly sought rather than trying to inventory the bag for him as his words had implied he wanted.

"Course you were," he grumbles, finding the large container and pulling it out before angrily zipping the backpack closed again then hurling it into the back corner of the tent. "D'you have stock in the company or something?"

Her lips twist into an unbidden smile at the question, but she ignores it otherwise. The usefulness of the wipes has spoken for itself on more occasions than she needs to point out. She takes the container from him, pops the top and plucks out two of the pre-moistened sanitary napkins. She then sets the tub down between them, hands him one of the wipes and proceeds to use the other to clean herself up.

It glides cool and slick across her face and down the nape of her neck and she feels his eyes following while he kneels nearby. She scrubs across her shoulders and down her arms before feeling the wipe sufficiently used and grimy enough to discard. She drops it to the floor to be picked up when they're done then she reaches for another one.

"They tend to work better while wet," she prompts with a smile she bites back from her lips but can't stop from sparkling in her eyes. "Hence the name 'Wet Wipes.'"

"Yeah. And?" he snorts, looking from her to the drying wipe she'd thrust into his hand. "Want me to get your back or something?"

_Now that was an idea_.

"I just thought we'd feel a little better today if we weren't so …sticky," she turns away with a blush at how their bodies had gotten more than the usual sweat and grime of the day on the road.

Somewhere in the tangle of the sleeping bags, when she cleans up the tent to pack it away for travel, she'll find her discarded shirt which he had used to wipe them down a bit after they'd peeled off their wet underwear when it had become uncomfortable to feel the material clinging to their private parts. She couldn't remember the last time, if ever in her life; she had soaked a pair of panties. Thankfully the events surrounding said soaking were hot enough that she was only mildly embarrassed by the whole thing in hindsight.

When she begins to scrub at her underarms she catches movement in her peripheral vision and peeks sideways to watch as Daryl goes straight to his groin to rub at any stickiness remaining from his having come in his boxers. Her hand slows to a stop as she watches his hand move over the skin from his bellybutton downward to his dick. Under her gaze and/or from the touch of his hand, he began to harden, filling and expanding with the blood she could see pulsing through him and she felt and answering pulse within herself. If she had put on her clean pair of underwear they'd be well on their way to soaked right about now.

"Hey, Daryl. You up?"

Glenn's soft voice outside the tent makes them both jump like scalded cats; looking away from one another and hurriedly going for something to cover their bodies like the guy could see them naked through the canvas.

"Be right out," Daryl said, tossing aside his wet wipe and rushing to shove himself into a clean set of clothes.

He grabs his buckknife, crossbow and boots then begins to unzip the flap without another glance in her direction. The likelihood of Glenn seeing her naked becomes realistic and she squeaks; yanking the sleeping bag up to cover herself more effectively than the shirt her hands had originally reached for.

Daryl pauses at the noise and looks back, as if just reminder of her nudity in his rush to get out of the tent in response to Glenn's sudden interruption. Unfortunately, his hesitation and her squeak draw the kid's curiosity and she briefly meets his dark eyes his gaze drops down to see her bare shoulders above her clenched knuckles holding the sleeping bag protectively over her obviously naked breasts. He blushes and stammers out and apology before stumbling back and looking very pointedly _not_ at the tent.

"Sorry," Darryl adds his own apology before quickly leaving the shelter and zipping the flap closed behind him.

She covers herself completely with the sleeping bag and wonders if there's any way she can maybe never have to see Glenn again because she knows the young man will blush any time he sees her know thinking of how he almost just saw her naked and how that mean she had been naked in the tent with Daryl and everyone was going to know with just one look at the kid that he'd seen_ something_ and they'll speculate about just what exactly he _had_ seen to make him blush like that and the whole time Carol's face will be flaming because she knows they'll all be wondering about her sex life and while it was kind of nice to actually _have_ a sex life with Daryl, this was just a mess.

Her mortification intensifies when she shifts under the cover and something flops in her face; startling her to push the blanket back until she sees the tiny twisted bundle of her panties.

"Oh for Pete's sake!" she grabs the offending item and hurls the sleeping bag aside.

Cursing herself for her overly adolescent reactions, she quickly finds Daryl's boxers and her shirt in the bedding and balls the trio of dirty articles into a bundle which shoves in the bag she keeps for 'laundry.' She collects her capris and his clothing from the previous day and puts them into the bag with a little less force.

Not wanting to stay in the tent by herself, she returns to her previous intention of cleaning up, dressing and joining Daryl on watch.

It's not nearly as fun or exciting to wipe herself down without him watching, so she gives a few quick swipes over the unwashed parts of herself to ease away some of the grit and grime that builds up so quickly on a body. Her hand does linger just a moment between her legs, marveling at the moisture there and the way her flesh shudders at the slightest touch.

_It's no wonder she's blushing and thinking and jumping around like a damned teenager. She's certainly as horny as one._


	17. Chapter 17

**_Private Parts, by MissMishka_**

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><p>There's a chill in the air as Carol unzips the flap to the exit the tent after straightening up the space as best she could. She turns to dig out the light jacket she had thought to grab at the store and as she shrugs into it her eye catches the familiar denim sleeve of what Daryl considered his jacket.<p>

She picks it up slowly, smiling as always at the dirty set of angel's wings sewn on the back of the black leather vest that the long sleeves had been stitched to. Her fingers are reverent as they stroke over the familiar arch and sweep of the once white feathers in the design. She'd once scrubbed her knuckles raw to nearly bleeding trying to wash out the road dust and grime from the patch until she had accepted that the dirt was likely as old as the jacket and nothing would get those wings white again. Now it seems fitting that he brandish these tarnished wings.

Her head pokes out carefully, not worrying about zombie attacks, more cringing inwardly at the thought of crossing paths with Glenn and his blushes causing her to blush. The camp is quiet without any movement to keep her in hiding so she slips from the shelter and zips the closure back up enough to prevent vermin from seeking shelter inside, but leaving some opening to air out the musky scents of sex that seem to permeate the air; real or imagined by her, she blushed at the thought of returning to the tent after watch and being hit by the smell as a potent reminder of their grinding bodies.

The faint tremor in her thighs is reminder enough as she crosses the site to climb the ladder to the RV's roof. A deeper, stronger shudder moves through her as she considers her body's reaction to mere friction and imagines how actual penetration is likely to leave her utterly wrecked. She bites her lower lip to stifle a whimper at the want within her to make that fantasy reality. She'd gotten so close to _being_ with him earlier that she wonders what might have happened if Daryl hadn't taken a watch shift, if they had had a chance to awaken together in the morning with their bodies having curled together for warmth in the darkness.

"Told you to go back to sleep."

"Told you I wouldn't be able to," Carol retorts to Daryl's greeting as she composes herself to swing up to join him for watch.

Darkness surrounds them and it should be eerie with the campfire burnt down to barely glowing embers and only faint traces of moonlight breaking through the canopy of trees above them. With Daryl looking up at her with a faint twist to his lips as he accepts the jacket she offers, she doesn't feel the chill or darkness of the late/early hour.

"Glenn turn in?" she asks while lowering herself to sit on the Winnebago with her legs curled under her.

"Taking advantage of the chance to sleep," Daryl grunts while putting on his jacket. "Smart guy."

_Unlike her_, is the blatant insinuation and she ignores his faint chiding.

She smiles at him, choosing to ignore the prod as he often did her more maternal actions toward him. He shakes his at her then focuses on a tent across the camp. When her gaze follows his in instinctive curiosity she blinks in faint surprise at the light gray dome shelter that she hadn't even noticed set up earlier. She can blame Daryl's little trek into the woods with Andrea and the gift he'd left for her lack of observation during the setting up of camp.

"You set up your tent?" she frowns at him; at the idea of that.

"Glenn and Maggie," he replies with his eyes watching a light flare briefly in the shelter then go out after a few moments as the couple apparently settled for the remaining night.

"They took your tent?"

"Gave it to 'em," he drops his gaze and shrugs a shoulder up as if to hide his face from her watching eyes. He picks at his fingernails for a moment before mumbling a barely audible, "I didn't think I would need it anymore."

Touched in a way that warms her cheeks, she shifts to nudge her shoulder against the defensive posture of his body until he eases enough for her to nestle in closer.

"You don't," she whispers once her head finds a comfortable rest against his chest. "You don't need it anymore."

His arm curls around her back and his chin brushes over the top of her head in a faint caress that she reciprocates by gliding her hand across his abdomen to anchor herself at his waist. They remain like that for far too short a period of time before his chin brushes against her again and she knows from the underlying tension in his body that it isn't an intentional caress. He's on guard duty, head attempting to do a complete swivel to insure that the camp, the group, is protected.

Suppressing the urge to sigh her regret at the end to their quiet moment, she lifts her head to press an almost kiss to his cloth covered shoulder as she pulls away to allow him to shift his position to scan the wilderness around them. She curls into her jacket, hugging herself to hold in the residual warmth of his body pressed against hers as she watches him on guard.

He's such a natural protector and provider that she aches sometimes to know more about his life before the unlikely chain of events that had brought them all together. He had lacked the ease and comfort of one used to children in the presence of Carl or Sophia or the young ones at the first camp, but there has always been something do paternal about him that it always drew her attention.

"What do you talk about with Andrea when you're alone with her?"

The question slips out of somewhere that even she doesn't anticipate and she almost apologizes it away in automatic fear of angry reprisal for daring to request such information.

"Stuff," is his vague reply given with a faint shrug and only a slight tensing of his body at the unexpected query.

"Stuff like you and I talk about?" she finds herself prodding even as she wonders what all, if anything that _they_ really discuss.

A snort escapes him and he shifts around to face her again, his half-smile and twinkling eyes evident in the dim night.

"This jealousy?" the other side of his mouth kicks up in a rare and full smile as the idea obviously delights him.

"You're so…at ease with her," she offers to neither to confirm or deny the charge. "You're different with me."

"_It's_ different with you."

She hadn't needed him to confirm that; not really. Or at least not consciously, but the words move her to raise a hand to stroke his cheek.

"For me, too," she whispers before daring to press her lips to his; the darkness making her braver, their earlier climaxes giving her confidence.

His mouth parts slowly under hers as his hand moves to cradle the back of her head and urge it to a backward tilt as he takes over with a brief sweep of his tongue before he firms it to push against the seam of her lips. She wants to fall against him and cling, but circumstances again end the moment before it can be truly enjoyed.

The rustling is so faint she doesn't consciously hear it to understand that there is a reason for him to suddenly stiffen and yank away from her. The sound of dried leaves shifting on the forest floor as something passed over the debris sinks through the haze of her want for him as he grabs his crossbow and flicks on a large flashlight to shine into the trees to the left of the RV.

"Outta kill you on principle," he grunts in something like disgusted humor before Carol can muster up the courage to follow the ray of light to the source of the disturbance.

She blinks at the comment and easing of his defensive stance. She moves to his side as he lowers the bow and does a careful sweep of the area with the artificial light to pierce the shadows.

As if sensing her presence and curiosity he aims the beam at the culprits and she laughs softly at the fat possum waddling through the underbrush with a pair of tinier versions following behind it, obviously a mother with children. Had it not been for those little puffs of fur somehow managing to appear cute despite the razor sharp teeth in the animals' pointed snouts and their rat-like tails, Carol may well have encouraged him to take the shot just so that their kiss would not have been so needlessly disrupted. Instead, she places a soft hand over his on the grip of the flashlight and applies a slight pressure to shut the beam down before urging him to return to a seated position on the roof.

"False alarms are rare," he says to the night after a few minutes of sitting close but not touching. "Usually if there's actually something there, it's never something living."

She knows this without being told, which is why she's always worried when he's on night watch; why she had known she wouldn't have been able to just go back to sleep without Daryl beside her and why she'd never cared when Ed left their tent for the pretense of taking on said duty.

"If you're going to make a habit of this, you're going to have to learn a long range weapon and prove to me that you can use it," he continues when she makes to response to his opening gambit.

"I can learn so long as Shane isn't teaching," she responds after a moment, thinking back to the attempts at target practice and gun safety training at the farm.

Daryl's snort is answer enough to the question that she had buried in the statement to relax her into actually smiling at the idea of him teaching her to handle weaponry; determined to do better than she had with the machete he'd so recently thrust into her hand.

"When will we have time?" she thinks of the routine of breaking down camp, loading up and moving on again to a destination unknown.

"We'll make it," he assures her with a brush of his knuckles along the side of her arm.

She takes it as permission and perhaps invitation to return to their previous closeness and moves back to press against his side. He leans back against her to accept her weight, but he doesn't wrap his arm around her again and he keeps his vigilance up with their surroundings. Despite his tension, she finds herself relaxing. She imagines she could doze off on his shoulder, but knows that would restrict his effectiveness at watch and he wouldn't like that anymore than he would like to put her off as she begins to show signs of drifting off.

Her internal clock is nowhere near as accurate as Daryl's, but she knows they're in for a four hour watch, she'd probably fiddled through thirty minutes before leaving the tent and estimates they've been another thirty together on duty.

"Last week Dale and I spent an hour talking microwave versus toaster ovens versus rotisseries then another hour wondering if any of that would ever matter again and yet another on why it had ever factored into our lives to begin with."

He looks at her curiously with his right eyebrow slowly creeping up at the random insight. She blushes and bites the inside of her cheek against the urge to babble an explanation that takes her back to jealous of Andrea.

"We talked ammunition for a bit today. Aluminum shafts versus carbon for my bow with plastic and woods good alternatives. Hollow-point bullets and whether buckshot or rubber bullets would be effective against a Walker," he all but sighs with his disinterest in recounting the topic to allay what she wouldn't really call her fears, more…worries. "That lasted about ten minutes."

He shifts her to scratch idly at his chest for a moment as he considers how much to tell her about the rest. She senses a sensitive and/or possibly private topic having been discussed and it makes her wonder if the information is his or Andrea's to disclose. If it's the latter, Carol knows he'll not betray a confidence even for her and if it's the former, she wonders if she really wants to have him tell her.

"She's not like us. I tell her things while grinning, she takes it as a joke and laughs. Tell her something serious, she listens and sympathizes or offers advice. They're all just stories to her. To me; to you, they're scars. I tell you those things and you see through the smile to the damage. You _know._ You've been there. We don't retell it; we relive it," the cadence of his voice is soft and soothing; lulling despite the tone of the content spoken. "The bad in this world found a way to get worse. You and I don't need to talk about the way it was before."

She feels a tickle on her cheek but refuses to brush at it and draw attention to the tear winding its way unexpectedly from her eye. Instead her hand reaches out for his, touches him to still his scratching fingers then slips her hand into the loosely buttoned neckline of his plain shirt to send her fingers in search of the puckered skin of the scar that he worried when upset. She presses her palm flat against his flesh, feeling the warmth of living skin and the beat of his heart and those things matter far more than the origins of the old wound.

His hand moves to loosely grip her wrist, neither removing her hand nor pressing it to him as his fingers skate over her pulse point. Her fingers idly stroke his chest; his skim from the wrist exposed by her bunched sleeve over the covered length of her arm. Her head tips back to his shoulder; his chin tucks against her temple and stays there.

They stay there until dawn breaks without any additional talk.

* * *

><p>AN: OMG I finally actually wrote an update! I have no apology good enough for neglecting this series to tinker in new fandoms. Much love and thanks for all readers to date & keep hope, this is NOT done until it is well and truly COMPLETE with a definitive and bold "The End" on the last update. I just can't guesstimate in any shape or form whenever that end may come.

Subtitle for this section taken from the Halestorm song "Private Parts," which is an amazing song for capturing what true intimacy really is in a relationship. How getting naked with someone is so very far from what it is to be _exposed_ to them and how for love to work and be real, you have to give them access to allow of it; good, bad, ugly, smart, dumb, better or worse to prove that what you have and feel is more than sex and can survive exposure to your most private parts. So basically, that song speaks to me on a very Daryl/Carol level.


	18. Chapter 18

**_Not Going Back, by MissMishka_**

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><p>Dawn breaks slowly in the woods; it just kind of creeps up on you in a way that seems endlessly fascinating to Carol despite her increasing distaste of camping.<p>

As the darkness begins to lighten around them with the coming day, Daryl briefly holds her closer and she shamelessly cuddles into his proffered warmth.

"Gotta go piss."

The words after the hours spent silent together in the darkness spoil the quiet of the scene, but the typically blunt statement startles a laugh from her.

"Something funny about my overflowing bladder, woman?"

Her laughter gets louder at the absurd question and she puts a hasty hand over her mouth to cover the sound as it carries into the still surrounding them. He grins his satisfaction at amusing her and jars his shoulder lightly into hers before he pushes up to stand beside her.

Despite his 'overflowing bladder' he takes his time about leaving the roof to find a place to relieve himself. She watches him stretch his arms high above his head to draw out the muscles that he'd kept cramped in his sitting position for the past few hours. He pops joints and rolls his neck as if limbering up, but she's too caught up in the flashes of skin revealed by his movements to question his actions. The hem of his shirt rises to show the soft hair below his belly button that trailed happily down into the waist of his jeans and she knows that the path continues all the way to his groin.

As he completes his exercises and drops his attention back to her he blushes faintly at her intent focus on his body and she forces herself to look away.

"I'll get the fire started," she focuses on pushing herself to stand with a groan as her body protests the movement after sitting for so long.

She unconsciously begins a series of stretches to mirror Daryl's and feels a moan escape her as the kinks in her body slowly ease with each arch of her spine. She feels him watching her as she had watched him and turns her head to see if his eyes are as interested as hers had been. She freezes in a backward arch with her hands joined together and extended over her head. The pose thrusts her breasts up and out, dislodging the unfastened front of her jacket to show how her cotton top clings to the soft mounds and outlining clearly how her nipples have hardened in the morning chill.

His thumbs lifts to rubs idly over his lower lip as she holds the position until her back protests the continued pull on muscles unused to this particular arch. He blinks as she straightens and his fingers stop stroking as they stare at one another for a moment.

"Yeah," he nods, but she has no idea to what he's responding. "I'm gonna go do that now."

He scoops up his bow then moves quickly to the ladder to disappear down the back of the Winnebago. She follows more slowly while trying to decide if his hasty exit is flattering or insulting and can only settle on it having been typical Daryl which is somehow always both those things without ever meaning to be either. She supposes it's a sign of her growing confidence that she finds that trait of his endearing more than off-putting.

Moving to the ladder she climbs down with thoughts of relieving herself taking precedence over starting a fire and she veers to the tent for her morning kit before seeking out a nice bush to go behind so that she doesn't risk waking anyone be creeping into the RV to use the bathroom. A rustling in the underbrush stops her heart and freezes her dead in the process of pulling her pants back up.

Her eyes close on the realization that it could soon be ending for her in these undignified circumstances and she kicks herself for not including the machete in the things she had grabbed from the tent. Daryl was going to kill her for that and she hates that he may literally have to do it to stop her from becoming an abomination like Sophia. She wants to cry for her daughter and all the mistakes that have brought her to this point, but instead she forces her eyes to open so she can look around for a potential weapon as the rustling grows closer.

Breathing low and quiet while trying not to crumble and panic she sees a rock big enough to be helpful while appearing to be light enough for her to pick up over her head to bring it down on the threat and hopefully smash it to death or until she can get to safety. Before she can lunge for the improvised weapon a little puff of grayish white fur toddles out from under the bush behind her and she looks at the baby possum with much the same sentiment that Daryl had hours before.

"I don't care how cute you are right now, you pull a stunt like that and I will kill you on principle," she declares with a shaking voice and hands as she settles the waistband of her pants back up over her hips.

The mother possum ventures out after the wayward offspring with a watchful eye and warning hiss toward Carol before the pair disappears back under the bush.

Collecting the plastic baggie containing the towelete she had used along with the container of Wet Wipes and her hand sanitizer, she vows never to make a move into the damned woods again without a weapon in hand.

Daryl's glower greets her the second she steps back into the clearing of the campsite and she looks past the deadly tip of the arrow lined up with the center of her forehead and winces in apology at the tight set of his jaw.

"Sorry," she whispers as he lowers the weapon and she moves closer. "I had to go, too."

"Should've said something; gone in _with me_," he snaps out with his eyes narrowing upon her. "You don't go into the woods along, dammit."

"I know," _trust me, I __**know**__._

"Knowing ain't any good if you aren't _doing_, woman," he puts a firm hand on her arm; not bruising, just holding to pull her in as he puts a quick kiss to her lips. "Got the fire started."

She smells the smoke mixing with the sweat and musk of him as she allows herself the luxury of sliding her arms around his waist for a hug while trying not to think about how this scene would be playing out if it hadn't been another false alarm in the woods.

"I'll get things set up for breakfast," she pulls away with a reassuring smile then moves to return her toiletries to the tent before taking her trash to put in the garbage collection in the RV.

She gathers supplies for a quick and filling dish of fried powdered eggs and SPAM, assuming that the group would be more interested in pulling up stakes quickly than an elaborate mea to start the day. Dale stirs awake on the bed behind her as her collection of items rattles in the transition from the counter to her arms. She returns the burden to the counter and turns to apologize, but he waves her off before she can offer the words for waking him.

"Slept longer than I should have anyway," he yawns before moving stiffly to stand.

"Where do we go today?" she asks, wanting to hear it from his level head to brace for any potential flare-ups over breakfast.

"Back to the farm," he shakes his head and scratches at his beard before offering her a wry smile. "Maggie imagines that Hershel's ire will have died down with her having been gone long enough to show that she means to stay with Glenn and Rick hopes to use that to gain permission for us all to be allowed back until after Lori's had the baby."

"And Shane?" she can't believe she and Daryl hadn't been disturbed by the likely argument that had taken place leading up to the group's decision.

"Will be 'scouting ahead' for other locations for us to move on to should Hershel not see reason."

"Andrea?"

"Is with us."

"This," she frowns in search of the right words, "this sounds like a good plan, Dale."

She isn't about to hold her breath that they'll be welcomed back on the Greene farm with open arms and she isn't at all sure that she wants to step foot on the land again, but she can see the benefits of it and isn't sure where her friend's odd attitude is coming from.

"You ever get that feeling that a good plan is just going to go terribly bad?"

He shuffles to the bathroom before she can do more than hear and replay the question in her mind. She hugs her jacket around her, zipping it closed while frowning after the man and trying to shake off the ominous feelings left by his words. She picks the campfire skillet back up and holds the utensils steady to make sure she doesn't lose anything as she carries the items outside.

Daryl is sitting beside the fire; sharpening his hunting knife with even, rhythmic strokes of steel over stone in a noise that has lulled to calm her more than once before. The welcome in his eyes when he glances up at her arrival on the other side of the growing flames insures that her unease settles like the moment with Dale hadn't just happened.

"What's on the menu?"

"Powdered eggs and SPAM," she shows him the mix, bottled water and canned meat as she removes the items from the skillet to begin preparing it to cook.

He makes a noncommittal sound and returns his focus to his own task while she mixes melts some grease in the skillet, mixes the eggs then cuts the pink lump of SPAM into bite sized pieces to add to the milky yellow mess. She tends the mix as it cooks, solidifying into something more appealing in sight if not necessarily smell.

"Dale says we're going back to the farm," she shares while idly stirring the eggs and watching the dancing fire. "He doesn't seem comfortable with the idea."

"Could go either way," the sharpening stops and she looks across to watch him sheathe the knife and set the whetstone aside. "Whose idea was it?"

"He didn't say for sure, but he mentioned Maggie and Rick as mainly in favor of it."

"Shane?"

"Doesn't appear to be planning to stay with us."

"That should tip scales to the better," he scratches at his jaw then looks at her closely. "Can you go back?"

"I think we can be safe there and I can stay there if we're allowed," she removes the skillet from the fire and covers it before moving to sit beside him. "I don't want to think of it as 'going back,' though."

She gives him a smile and speaking glance to which he responds with a raised eyebrow and careful nod of his head.

"That's my girl," he rubs a hand over her the back of her head the kisses the side of her forehead before pushing to his feet as the camp began to waken.


	19. Chapter 19

A/N: Apologies as always for the major lag in updating this one. I'm going all the way back to pick up threads from Rain Coming (Chap 4) for this one and I'm thinking/hoping that returning to some of my earlier/original storylines on this one will help bring it to a conclusion before too much longer. There's nothing overly specific going back to the earlier chapter, though, so if you've kind of forgotten that given the time that's passed between the posting of those chapters have no fear of missing any crucial points but do feel free to go back for a reread if you like. It was personally one of my favorite chapters to write so far in this series because I really let them just be *cute* together.

Also, the basic facts (year and make) about Daryl's Triumph are taken from AMC's story notes for episode 2x01 "Save the Last One." I personally think the bike has been a bit more modified if it's a Triumph; the handlebars are higher than most of those models and it sets differently, but I'm not a gearhead so I rely on the people who are actually doing/making the show so if they say it's a '71 Triumph with a '69 engine, so shall it be.

_**Triumph by MissMishka**_

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><p>With most of the camp packed away, Carol takes a moment to stretch out the kinks in her back from all the bending and lifting she'd been doing to take down the tents. The chill is starting to ease as the sun chases away all traces of the night, but she can tell it will be a cool day.<p>

By everyone's reckoning of the time that has passed since this madness began, summer is definitely over and fall is looking cold with winter being something that she doesn't even want to consider yet. Her bones tell her that it will be a cold, hard winter from nature alone and she just hopes that they make it to see the first snow with a roof over their heads. They wouldn't survive the frigid months in tents and sleeping bags; sickness would claim them before the Walkers and that thought raises goosebumps over her arms.

Her eyes immediately search out Daryl and she takes in a deep breath as the sight of him draws her from fretting about a future they'll be lucky to even have.

He's off to himself; standing beside the truck staring at his motorcycle. Her worry returns for different reasons as she notices the way his hands are gripping the rail on the truck bed; his jaw is set and she senses some kind of inner debate taking place in his mind and is eyes remain locked on that bike.

Not knowing what could be wrong unless he's thinking of his brother, she begins to slowly make her way over to him; wrapping her arms around herself to restrain the urge to touch as his posture indicates a rejection of any contact.

"Hey," she says softly, slowing to a stop a few feet away from him.

A familiar jerk of his chin is all she gets; not openly encouraging her presence while not openly rejecting it either.

"We should be ready to roll soon," she says when she really wants to ask what's wrong as she moves to stand nearer to his side.

"Good weather to ride in," he takes his right hand from the railing to scratch at the underside of his jaw like his growing beard is bothersome.

"You need any help unloading it?" she asks; wondering if the logistics of that task is what has had him so absorbed, but doubting that to be the case.

"Need the truck," he drops his hand back to the truck with a thud before restlessly tapping his thumb against the rail.

"So we're not riding?" she frowns with some confusion.

"Bike's a good way to maneuver through traffic. Saw two snarls on the ride down that we're gonna have to weave through to get back to Hershel's. Bike's best for point on that," he bites the inside of his cheek and squints at the motorcycle like it will provide answers.

She has the knowledge that she had sought, though; he wanted to ride the bike but knew the value of the pickup and he couldn't be in two places at once, so.

"I'll drive the truck and-"

He cuts her off with a sharp look that causes a flutter deep within her. He doesn't make any grand declarations about wanting her to ride with him, but it's in the flash of his eyes and seconded by the move he makes to shift closer to her.

She pushes even closer until her body is wedged against his. She resists the urge to nuzzle her head against his shoulder while allowing herself the luxury of unwinding her arms to slip one around his waist.

"Why does it matter so much?"

He stiffens so slightly that she would never have seen it, but pressed against him she feels that instinctive flinch against such a personal question and the memories it likely stirs. She won't call the words back, though; can't, because she has wondered at the importance of the motorcycle ever since he took such strides to make sure it's stayed with him since Atlanta.

"Picked my bow up after all this started. When I realized it was all going to shit, I didn't have time to grab much of my own things, just got in the truck and went to get Merle out of lock-up. He'd gotten a drunk and disorderly turned into assault for taking a swing at the arresting officer and I doubted they'd be too concerned for his welfare. Snagged the bow from a neighbor of his when we went back to his apartment for supplies."

She resists the urge to snort at the memory of some of the 'supplies' that his brother had grabbed for their escape.

"My knife, I've had a few years. Always have it on me."

Her gaze drops to the sheathed weapon on his hip a mere inch from digging into her side as she presses against him. She tips her head to the side as her eyes go back to his profile; wondering at the point he's getting to and biting her tongue to prod him quicker to that end.

"That's a '71 Triumph. Was my dad's. He bought it from a junkyard when I was a kid. Someone laid it down and it was considered a total loss. One thing he knew, though, was bikes, so he got it for a steal and set about teaching us to restore it. Merle didn't much take to the mechanics; learned enough to get by and keep dad from boxing his ears when he wanted us to learn something, but I loved it. I was maybe 12 at the time. Helped the old man scavenge and fabricate parts to restore the body; mounted a '69 engine on it, gave it a slightly bigger tank than the peanut those Brits put on 'em. Only good that man ever did was teach me engines. Only good times we ever had were rebuilding this bike."

She wants to ask how it became Merle's when Daryl had clearly put so much into the machine, but she could easily imagine how the elder Dixon had claimed the motorcycle.

"'Brits?' Thought you only drive America?" she says instead, striving for humor to break through the disturbing set of his features as he drifts in memories of the past.

She adds a playful bump with her hip when he doesn't immediately respond to her words and that gets her the snort of mirth and crooked grin that makes her want to do a victory dance. Anytime she's responsible for a laugh he releases, smile he shows or twinkle he can't keep from his eyes it makes her feel…. triumphant.

"This bike is better than American made; it's a Dixon original," he gives her a wink and shifts away from her, taking a bit of space to return himself from past to present;

A smile comes and goes on her own lips as she turns to look at the motorcycle with newly opened eyes. She looks past the SS insignia on the side of the tank; wondering idly if his father or brother were responsible for marking the machine with a symbol of racism but not really caring as she knows that Daryl may have some of the ignorance, but not the hatred of his upbringing. Her eyes move over the bike like a caress, remembering all the times that she has seen Daryl tinkering with it to keep it running reliably and imagining what he must have looked like as a little kid working with his father to bring the wrecked machine back to life.

"We can find another truck," she whispers, leaning across the slight distance between them to mouth a kiss over the sleeve of his jacket.

She moves to lower the tailgate and reaches for the wooden ramp to ready it for unloading the motorcycle. He stops her with a brush of fingertips to the small of her back that she shouldn't have been able to feel through her shirt and jacket, but her body just knows the contact had been made before he leans past her to grab the board himself.

He just gives her a smirk when she huffs out a sigh and bites back a complaint about his taking the chore from her when she is more than capable of getting the plank and wedging it against the tailgate and ground.

"Be careful," she nags as payback, snagging a grip on the leg of his pants when he moved to hop up on the bed of the truck to back the bike off.

"You wanna try lifting it off, you go right ahead, honey."

She smacks his smart ass for that as she had wanted to the last time he made a comment along those lines and steps away with burning cheeks as he throws out a quip about saving some of that for later.

Her blush intensifies when she finds Maggie and Glenn standing nearby and trying to pretend that they hadn't witnessed the flirtatious byplay. The tips of Glenn's ears show red against the edge of his ball cap and his eyes snag on Carol's before darting away. He stammers something about helping Dale and leaves as quickly as possible while they both remember the near peep show he'd gotten in the early/late hour of the change in watch.

Maggie moves closer, tucking her hands into her front pockets and watching her boyfriend's hasty departure with a fondness that could not be faked.

"He swears he wasn't a complete virgin before me, but at times like this, I really doubt that," the young woman smiles after him then turns to give her attention to Carol. "We just wanted to thank you for the tent."

She tips her head back to address the thanks at Daryl as he mounts his bike and prepares to unload it. He gives a grunt that acknowledges her words, but doesn't really accept the gratitude for a gesture he likely doesn't want attention for having made.

Carol gives her a speaking glance at the sound and they exchange smiles when Maggie's attention returns to her. There seems to be more that the girl has come to say, so Carol gladly moves away from the truck to talk while Daryl starts up the motorcycle.

"It was nice to be out of the RV for a bit," Maggie begins conversationally.

Carol tries to listen and not give all her attention to the precarious maneuvering of Daryl lining the bike tires up with the narrow ramp before easing the heavy machine down the board that could so easily break beneath him.

"…so we could just drive it for you," Maggie says in conclusion of God only knew what spiel.

Carol breathes after what feels like an age as Daryl rolls the Triumph safely to a stop on the ground, lowers the kickstand then dismounts to return the ramp to the bed of the truck. She blinks away from him and uncurls her fingers from the heart pendant that she had apparently gripped in her worry without even realizing how tense the moment had made her.

"Do you think he'll go for it?" Maggie prods from beside her and Carol starts rather guiltily.

"Sorry," she wipes a sweaty palm on her pants and forces her attention to the other woman. "What?"

"You're really gone for him, aren't you?" the girl smiles at her distraction and looks consideringly at Daryl. Her gaze then drifts over the group to locate Glenn among the others and her expression grows thoughtful. "Dad said it wasn't really love, that it's just all I have left to pick from, but I don't think that's the case for either of us. Maybe all this loss was just the only way that we'd be able to recognize our soul mates when we've finally found them."

Carol doesn't really have a response for that theory, but resists the urge to snort as she feels Daryl would have at the notion. Soul mates is a nice ideal, but the truth is likely somewhere in between the Greene's theories; Hershel's fatalistic cynicism of love at the end of the world being no more than two available bodies clinging together for no other option of comfort and Maggie's romanticized ideal that that person you're clinging to is exactly just the only person that you're meant to and want to cling to as life flickers out.

She certainly can't imagine herself with Ed still; she's somehow certain that even if he had made it out of Atlanta her heart, mind and body would have led her to Daryl eventually.

They had had moments, Daryl and she, at the quarry; only the simplest of interactions given the thumb Ed had kept her under, but still. They had often kept round the same campfire; neither really talking as Ed and Merle each did their part to dominate the conversation. She had often accepted the game Daryl killed for the group and been the one to prepare it for meals. She had been the one to collect the dirty clothes from the Dixon brothers' tent after Ed had gotten chummy with Merle and assured the elder sibling that Carol didn't mind the added chore of their laundry despite Daryl's quiet argument that the Dixon men; meaning Daryl; were capable of minding their own wash.

It'd mostly been mothering then, but Daryl had begun to offer her protection even then; doing little things to provide for her and Sophia that Ed never would have. They both carried their abuse like shame; recognizing it easily in each other. Kindred spirits; definitely that from their first contact even if the idea of soul mates felt a bit far-fetched.

She tries not to think of her lost child with grief as she pushes away the memories of that time and place, striving as always to let it all go to move on.

"I know we should probably cut down on vehicles, given how tight gas is, but it makes sense to hold on to the truck until we get closer to the farm, so if y'all didn't have other plans for it, Glenn and I can drive it," Maggie is explaining again and Carol gets the gist of it through the drift of her thoughts.

"Thank you," she says with a sincere smile. "Daryl didn't want to leave it behind."

She reaches out to take the young woman's hand in a grateful clench before turning to seek out Daryl in the group. She finds him talking with Glenn just as he grins, slaps the young man on the back and hands over the keys to the pickup. Sensing that they had just had the same conversation that she and Maggie had she laughs softly when Daryl's eyes turn to meet hers across the distance.

"Looks like we're about finished," she observes as everything has been cleared and packed away for travel. "We should…" she makes a telling gesture towards the bushes and Maggie laughs before nodding her agreement.

After grabbing the wipes, sanitizer and machete she walks with the younger woman into the woods for what may be their last bathroom break before lunch time. Maggie silently acknowledges her sensibility in bringing the weapon as they venture a short distance out of sight. The young woman arches a curious brow, though, when Carol takes the blade and uses it to rustle the bushes before either of them makes a move to lower pants.

"Don't ask," is all she says in response to the arched brow as she relaxes at the lack of opossums or anything else running out of the foliage.


	20. Chapter 20

**_Radio Silence, by MissMishka_**

* * *

><p>Daryl doesn't ride out first to start off the convoy; Shane takes that position.<p>

Carol sits on the back of the Triumph as it sits idle in line behind the Hyundai and tries to sort out her feelings as the car starts and begins to pull away from the group.

Hearing Dale say that Shane would be 'scouting ahead' and watching the man actually leave them turn out to be two completely different things. They'd said their goodbyes to the man and they all knew that, one way or another, it was goodbye. She doesn't like the man, but she didn't hate him either and the idea of anyone that she _knew_ actually being out in this world alone make her gut twist. He was a hothead, but he did offer protection to the group; he'd saved her and Sophia twice from Walkers at the quarry and had in his own way done what he could to shield them from Ed's abuse even if the most memorable part of that was his violence toward her former husband that last day before they lost that camp.

Shane's presence caused conflict and distress with the triangle he'd gotten tangled in with Lori and Rick and Hershel would most certainly not allow the man back on his farm for all of the disrespect Shane had shown the man, but Carol just wasn't comfortable with the sight of him driving away alone. He had weapons, ammo and supplies for his trip as well as a ham radio to keep in touch, but they'd all been through this before. In the weeks since leaving Atlanta, there hadn't been so much as a crackle over the airways from the Morales family and Rick still crept out alone with his walkie talkie trying and failing to get in contact with the man that had saved him after the deputy woke from his coma.

The reality of this world was often that if you lost contact with those you knew; then those you knew had been lost and if you ever did see them again you would most likely have to kill them or be killed by them.

Her arms clench tighter around Daryl's waist at the thought and he gives her a look over his shoulder.

"Just doesn't seem right," she confesses with a wry twist of her lips.

"For the best," he assures her more with the brief stroke of his thumb over the back of her clutching hands than with the simple words.

She nods her acceptance and understanding of this fact, but can't stop the pang she feels as the Hyundai disappears from sight. She doesn't believe for a second that anything will magically improve with the man's absence from the group; if anything his departure will likely leave them all with varying concerns and regrets as to the true necessity of this parting. It had ultimately been Shane's choice, though, that he would part now and drive on without making any effort to hold back to stay with the group until they got closer to the farm.

"Ready?" Daryl asks, still watching her rather than the departing vehicle.

She nods again, this time meeting his gaze and giving a smile to second her readiness.

He faces forward and starts the bike before flicking the kickstand up with a practiced motion of his heel then starting them in forward motion. Maggie is behind the wheel of the Ford as the pickup begins to roll after then with Dale in the Winnebago next and Rick still driving the Cherokee to take up the rear.

She holds tightly to him and focuses only on the warm solidity of Daryl Dixon as the bike begins to pick up speed. The vibration of the machine and the way he wiggles the handlebars to make the motorcycle weave back and forth across the road work together to remind her that she hadn't gotten that much sleep. She dozes; aware of their continued motion and the passage of miles from the warm glow of sunshine occasionally broken by the shadows of driving under trees or overpasses to momentarily blot out the sun.

He brings her back to full awareness with a sudden tension in his body and a light tap of his fingers to the arm she has wrapped around his waist. She goes immediately and deathly still; not wanting to open her eyes for fear of what is bringing the motorcycle slowly to a stop.

"First snarl," he tells her; sensing her concern and putting it to rest. "Go get in the RV while I make sure we can clear a path through."

Her eyes spring open at that as he braces his feet on the pavement and leaves the engine idling in apparent wait for her to just climb off and let him go. She open her mouth to argue, thoughts of losing contact and losing loved ones still at the forefront of her mind, but she can tell from his expression that there is no argument that she can make to change his instruction.

"Where's Shane?" she asks, looking at the mess of parked and/or wrecked cars ahead of them. "He should have gotten held up by this, too."

"He's looking for a way around."

Carol screams and mostly falls off the back of the motorcycle at the sudden and unexpected presence of Rick moving to stand beside them as he makes this announcement. He has the decency to apologize profusely and help her up once he realizes that it might not have been his best decision to just walk up on them like that with the noise of the engine to cover any sound he may have made upon approach.

Daryl doubles over the handlebars laughing at her.

She barely resists the urge to stomp his foot to cause him to overbalance with the bike as she brushes off the seat of her pants before stalking toward the RV with all the dignity she can muster. She vaguely hears Rick relaying to Daryl that Shane had reached out over the radio to give them a heads up about the mess that they now faced and to advise that he would notify them if there was a way around on lesser travelled roads.

Apparently that communication had come through over an hour ago with no follow-up and no response to Rick's attempts to raise Shane back on the radio.

Her step falters at what that likely means and she can only imagine what it's been like for the Grimes family riding along in the Jeep waiting for and hoping for a response from a man that has been so close to them before and since the world ended. She can't stop her mind from wondering what may have gotten the other man and where; how close the danger was now to them; how he had gotten so far ahead of them to have beaten them to this point over an hour ago when he'd left no more than five minutes before they started out.

She looks back before moving to enter the RV and her hand goes to clutch the heart pendant at the hollow of her throat. Fear grips the real deal in her chest at the sight of Daryl slinging the strap of his crossbow over his head to put the weapon within reach before he takes out the gun in his saddlebag to check the ammunition before he tucks that into the back waistband of his pants. He exchanges more words with Rick and she has no need to hear the conversation to know that it's serious; the expressions on both men's faces are telling enough.

With a gulp to muster her strength she turns away to open the door to the Winnebago and climb inside. No one acknowledges her entrance; each of the occupants too engrossed in the scene outside and trying to sort out in their own minds what exactly might be going on. Andrea looks up from her intent study of the world outside the window as Carol moves to sit down across from her at the kitchenette table. Carol glances out to see that Daryl is beginning to slowly thread his way into and through the traffic as Rick turns to have a word with Maggie and Glenn.

"Deja vu," the blonde mutters as her attention goes back outside and they wait for the deputy to come and brief everyone in the RV, knowing that that's what he'll do after updating the couple ahead of them.

Carol keeps her right hand on her necklace and reaches out almost blindly with her left to take hold of Andrea's hand. She closes her eyes; praying that this will be uneventful like the pile-up that they had cleared on the trip from the Greene farm and _**not**_ a repeat of the chain of events that had led them to ever finding shelter at that farm.

A rap of knuckles on the driver's side door of the vehicle brings them both to their feet and shuffling forward to crowd against the backs of the seats in the cab to hear what Rick has to say as Dale rolls his window from half to completely down.

"We saw this mess on the way down," the deputy says, "gonna take a while to clean it up. Daryl's making sure we can move all the obstacles before we start clearing anything. Shane's looking for a way around on other roads."

"You've been in contact?" Andrea asks and Carol wonders how much the man will share.

"He radioed to let us know it was coming up and he was looking for an alternate route," Rick replies with a nod.

He doesn't volunteer the rest that she had overheard him saying to Daryl. She wonders if Dale had heard any of that conversation through his lowered winder and a quick glance at the man's reflected gaze in the review mirror tells her that he had heard the rest.

"How long ago was your last contact?" Andrea asks the question that none of the others wanted voiced.

His eyes drop away and he rubs at the back of his neck in avoidance of that topic.

"Carl's been trying to raise him," Rick says with sigh. "Cut the engine, get lunch ready and wait for the go ahead from Daryl. I'll let you know as soon as we hear something."

"Shit," Andrea closes her eyes for a moment at the non-answer.

Before Carol can offer condolences or even figure out if such platitudes are necessary or appropriate, the blonde whips around to go to the weapons cache and begin pulling out everything that they had. With an efficiency that is all too familiar to them all she begins to sort the items, blunt instruments that require no maintenance; like Jim's baseball bat, edged weapons; like the knives and machetes, then the guns.

Carol moves to gather the blunt instruments back up and put them away before returning to her seat opposite the other woman. T-Dog moves to join them, putting his Glock and knife on the table for inspection and reloading along with the rest of it. They'd done all of this already; all the blades tested sharp, leaving new gouges in the surface of the table as they cut at the wood rather than risk running a fingertip over the razor edges to see if it cut to draw blood. All the guns have been recently cleaned, sights checked and adjusted as needed on all the rifles, no bullets have been fired to merit any reloading since they had last done this. Carol has little doubt that T-Dog and Andrea had spent most of the past night doing nothing but going through all of these same motions, but the routine gives them focus and distraction so she takes part in it.

Dale moves to start surveying the food supply for lunch options while the trailer door opens to admit Glenn then, after a moment's pause, Carl and Maggie climb in. They survey the cramped confines for a moment before Carl takes the seat beside Andrea to partake in the weapon's check while Maggie helps Dale with lunch and Glenn moves to retrieve the road maps from the passenger side's visor. Carol can imagine the young man poring over the grids trying to determine the route Shane had likely taken and any other routes that they themselves could take if need be.

Carol hates the tension humming through the air so much that her hands begin to shake and she thinks that she might have to shove Theodore aside so that she can run outside and vomit.

How did this kind of scene ever get to become commonplace in any of their lives?


	21. Chapter 21

**_Petri Dish of Yeech, by MissMishka_**

* * *

><p>Daryl comes back before Rick does.<p>

Carol's relief is dizzying and the roiling in her gut gets the better of her. She pushes past T-Dog and Daryl to stumble to the ground and throw up her breakfast; hoping she made it far enough away from the RV that no one will come across the mess and lose their own lunches or appetites. She stands on the shoulder of the highway; bent over with hands braced on her knees and eyes closed as she breathes to try bringing some calm to her nerves.

He'd been gone what felt like hours, but she knew it had likely only been thirty minutes to an hour at the most. Time enough for them all to tire at playing with the weapons while Dale and Maggie held off on serving the meal that they had thrown together; everyone having opted to wait for a direction before they are.

That time taken meant that he had encountered Walkers or that this traffic jam is just that long for them to have to clear a path through. Neither scenario helps her find anything approaching Zen.

"Carol?"

She hears Lori's concern and approach, but doesn't look up at the other woman until the sound of _her_ retching become evident. Carol cringes at the sound and gags before straightening. Rick appears with two bottles of water then makes a hasty departure to join the group in the RV. If she didn't feel so queasy she would have laughed at him, but all she can do is tuck the bottles under her arm before moving to hold back the pregnant woman's hair and rub her back until they're both relatively certain there will be no more upchucking from either of them.

Lori takes a bottle gladly and they each twist the tops off to swish their mouths out with the liquid.

"Does this mean that we're preggy pals?"

Carol spits out her mouthful of water to avoid choking on it at the other woman's wryly spoken question. She coughs and sputters at the very notion flapping a hand and shaking her head in such vehement protest that Lori ends up virtually collapsing against a beat up old Chevy and laughing until tears leak from the corners of her eyes.

"Not funny," Carol gasps out once she has some control of herself.

"That idea? No, not funny. Your face?" Lori manages to gasp out before convulsing with another fit of giggles while she flailed about in an apparent parody of what Carol had just looked like.

Sometimes, Carol really dislikes this woman. _**Really**__._

Laughing despite herself, Carol attempts another actual drink of water and manages to avoid another spit take while she moves to leans back against the same vehicle supporting the other woman.

"Morning sickness getting worse?" she asks seriously when the laughter dies down.

"Only when I first wake up or smell food or see vomit or smell and see dead things or, you know, move," Lori sighs with another drink from her own bottle.

Carol takes that as a yes and winces in sympathy at the idea of how nauseous the woman must feel if she really does get pangs from even a fraction of those things.

"Mine was nerves," she belatedly clarifies. "Just stress. And powdered eggs and SPAM."

"Oh, God," Lori gags and holds up a warning hand, "don't mention the SPAM."

Carol looks toward the RV to find the other all having piled out to begin clean up, leaving Daryl and Rick standing just outside the vehicle. Both men are staring rather worriedly at _her_ and she can only imagine that they are having or have just had the same thought/conversation that she has had with Lori. It would have been funny if she hadn't been able to see the visible flexing of Daryl's jaw as he ground his molars.

"We have work to do," she puts the cap on her water bottle and urges Lori forward before moving quickly to stand in front of Daryl.

"I'm not pregnant," she declares without any delay, uncaring of the married couple beside them. She puts her free hand on Daryl's jaw and makes sure he can't avoid her eyes. "My nerves are shot and I'm spending a little too much time in my own head for this early in the day. Shane gone and you wondering off and me here not knowing if you'll come back – I really really _**hate**_ that you do that," she pushes herself against his chest and hugs him tight as she should have done the second he stepped into the Winnebago. "I was so worried."

She feels some of the tension ease from his frame, but his motions are still stiff and awkward as he slowly wraps his arms around her. She takes the gesture as the solace that it is and exhales all her tension against his shoulder; holding him tighter as she senses Lori and Rick creeping away to give them a moment of privacy. After a few moments, she feels his chin tuck against the top of her head and the rest of the tension leaves him.

"You'd tell me if…." he practically mumbles against her scalp.

"If I could get and _did_ get pregnant you would be the first to know after me and God," she vows, pressing her forehead hard against his shoulder and not looking him in the eyes as she makes her confession. "I can't get pregnant. I'll never have another child."

The tension that comes and goes in his body; the way his arms flex tight around her before eases up to allow his right hand to begin a soothing rub against her back all ask her the question that he won't verbalize. She takes a bracing breath and tips her head back to find him watching her curiously.

"Sophia's birth was…not easy," her eyes drift closed for a moment at the memories that mock her for that understatement. "There was a twin that didn't make it. A stillborn I named Sonya. Sophia was bad shape and if I hadn't gone into labor three weeks early the doctors said I would have lost her too. They had to operate and this was back in a day when doctors thought it was easier to just take it all out so I had a hysterectomy. They took everything that'd let me have another child," she pulls out of his arms; already feeling the chill of him no longer holding her. "Ed wanted a son and always blamed me for never getting his heir."

She hugs herself and walks a few steps away from him; not about to blame him if he no longer wanted half a woman.

"Everything else in order?" he steps carefully after her and a laughs chokes out unbidden.

"I can still…you know," she buries her blush against his shoulder.

"I don't know," he puts an arm around her and she can feel his smile when his lips press to against the top of her. "Maybe you should explain it to me. In detail. I can draw some pictures…"

She puts her elbow lightly into his gut before pulling away.

"How long is this going to take us?" she straightens away from him to ask as they both turn to watch the slow progress of the group moving corpses and maneuvering vehicles aside enough for them to drive through.

"Too long," he sighs and her stomach knots again. "Goes on for almost a mile before it opens up enough for us to get through. Still slow going after that. We're sitting ducks here."

"Should we try going around?" she looks at him worriedly.

"I don't know these roads and we don't know what the hell happened to Shane when he veered off this road."

"What about finding a place to cross the median?" she looks forward and back seeing nothing but guardrails or a mess of wrecked vehicles blocking their way across to the southbound lanes of the interstate. "We know we can get through that way, if we can get over then we just up it. Not like we have to worry about oncoming traffic."

"I'll run it past Rick then see about going back to see if there's an opening," he nods like he genuinely hadn't thought of that option. "In the meantime, while you and Lori were having that your giggles, the assignments are as follows: Carl is currently monitoring the radio for word from Shane. Dale is on the roof," Carol blinks up in surprise and sees that the man is indeed at his unofficial post atop the RV. The old man gives her a salute and she flutters a distracted wave back because it wasn't at all creepy how he was just _there_ the whole time. "You and I are supposed to be gathering gas," he gestures toward the red cans and siphoning hose set beside the Winnebago. "As there's no delicate condition that we need to worry about, you will get gas. Get T-Dog to help you if needed if I go look for a crossover," she takes the gas can and hose when he thrusts them in her hands. "These assignments are to last for one hour. At that time, Maggie and Glenn get gas duty, Lori takes the radio watch and Dale stays on the roof. Hour after that Rick takes the radio, T-Dog and Carl get gas and Dale-"

"Stays on the roof," they complete together, exchanging smiles and looking up at the man as he shows no shame at only ever having the one job in these scenarios.

"The rotation will continue as needed; eat when you feel the need to and keep moving as much as possible as fast as you can throughout."

Hearing more than a little of his input into this duty roster, she nods and kisses the fabric over his heart before moving to start checking the vehicles likely to have the larger gas tanks.

"Forgetting something?" he asks chidingly after her and she looks down to make sure she has both the gas can and hose required to siphon fuel from these abandoned vehicles.

He comes up behind her as she's turning to ask him when he means and she jumps at the smack of the flat of the machete blade across her butt.

"Shit," she huffs, reaching for the weapon with both relief and resentment while kicking herself for leaving it God….in the truck?

"Rigged this up for you," he drops a looped length of rope over her head; angling it across her chest like he does the strap of his crossbow then letting it go so that the machete dangles over her hip. "Sheathe won't really work for it, so this should help you keep track of it without having to keep it in hand at all times. Just make sure you can pull it off without strangling yourself when you need it."

She gives it a few test runs, yanking the rope back over her head to grab the hilt of the weapon in hand then slinging it back over her shoulder out of the way. The drop is a little short, hitting her a bit high on the hip and causing the blade to angle outward in a way that could prove dangerous to anyone she accidentally bumped into, but she fixes that by tugging the rope so that the machete dangled more to the flatter front of her abdomen rather than putting it along the curve of her hip.

He seems satisfied after that and she watches as he moves to the front of the group where Rick and T-Dog are breaking out windows to get into vehicles to put them into neutral for pushing out of the way.

It seems so silly to her to be standing where she is now and see so many of the vehicles locked like these poor souls had done themselves any good by trying to hole themselves up in their cars waiting for the madness around them to pass. Human nature is such a funny thing and somehow it had become human nature to just lock the door if you found yourself inside a car when bad or scary things were happening outside the vehicle. It chills her suddenly to think that little Carl is likely locked alone in the Cherokee at that very moment; instructed by his parents to stay there with the radio and keep the locks engaged like it will save the child. All that it had done for these people is turn their cars into their coffins; causing them to die from starvation or who only knew what else before the Walkers left this area in search of fresh food.

These obstructions on the highways were graveyards in every sense of the word.

It doesn't surprise her a bit when to see Daryl walking back toward her on his way to the motorcycle. The idea is a good one, but not if he's really going to go back alone. She knows they have all the more need for manpower here on the clean-up duty now that Shane's not there to throw in his muscle, but if they lost Daryl, too…

"I'm only going back a few miles," he stops to inform her like he knew her worries; which he likely did because she knows her heart is on her sleeve now for all of them to see. "Won't take me nearly as long to do this as it did to scout ahead. Rick and I remember seeing an emergency access road about five miles back. If it's open, we'll backtrack and take it."

She has no input to offer on that topic as she had dozed on the ride to this point and she honestly can't remember when they had come through this particular stretch on their way down. It all starts to blur together after so long travelling; not to mention how much has happened to them in such a short span of time. Her mind boggles at the realization that this is only the third day since they'd left the farm.

"Hurry back," she orders, resisting the urge to cling and keeping her kisses to herself until she has had a chance to gargle with bleach and brush her teeth with some Comet. Her mouth was going to be a Petri dish of yeech after throwing up and siphoning gasoline.

"Yes, ma'am," he gives her his best 'aww shucks' drawl then moves to straddle the Triumph.

She doesn't watch him leave in hopes that he'll be back the next time she turns around. Focusing on her task helps time pass; even though she's always aware in the back of her mind of the minutes piling on since he left and through each one of them there is no excited appearance by Carl rushing towards the group to alert them to any communications with Shane.

She's almost finished filling the first gas can when shouts up ahead freeze her blood and causes her to drop the canister to the ground to grab for her machete with both hands. She gets immediately gets tangled in the rope as she tries to rip the strap over her head but doesn't let that stop her as she rushes to join the others in seeing what the hell is going on.

Theodore is as pale as she can imagine him to possibly get as he's leaning against the side of a sports car with Lori intently looking over his right arm for any signs of damage.

"What happened?" she and Andrea both ask as the last ones to come upon the scene.

T-Dog gives speaking glance toward the driver's side window of the car he'd broken into to move the vehicle out of the way. The corpse of a man is behind the wheel; body rotted from weeks dead but the puncture wound in the center of his forehead is fresh with congealed blood still oozing from it.

A zombie.

She looks to Rick and he gives a simple, terse nod to confirm what they all knew.

"It's going to slow us down, but from here on out no one opens a car alone," he orders them all.

"He had me," T-Dog runs shaking fingers over his arm to verify Lori's conclusion that he hadn't been bitten or scratched in any way that broke the surface of his skin. "I reached in to pop the lock and open the door and his hand was right there," the man wrapped his trembling fingers around his right wrist in what Carol guesses is just the way that the walker had gripped him.

"We got him," Rick moves to assure the man, "you're fine. We can't have any more calls that close, though. If I hadn't been right here talking to him, that thing would have bitten T-Dog. When I say we don't do this alone, I mean two per car; one to open the door the other to be right there ready to kill anything that moves inside the car. We can't ever assume that they're dead dead inside. Obviously, they may have gotten infected before they locked themselves in their cars and then they couldn't get themselves out after they turned."

The idea has them all looking over the cars surrounding them with renewed horror.

* * *

><p>Notes: Title for this one taken from the line I just really kind of liked and if "Petri dish of yeech" has ever been used by anyone else in writing or movies let me know because it's something I feel like I got from somewhere, but I have no idea where and Google had no results for the exact phrase. If its original to me... yay?<p>

As you can tell, my headspace was a little weird for this one rolling from twisted humor to kind of just twisted.

Writing this brought me to two startling conclusions:

1) I'm now 21 chapters in and this is truly only the 4th day, I had to go back and count it myself, the first chapter is day 1, day 2 picks up in chap 4, day 3 starts chap 8 and we just began this 4th day in chapter 18. The point of this? I spent waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy too long on the 3rd day with all the Wal-Mart shopping and feels afterward. 10 chapters for one fictional 24 hr time period; if I had thought it through more I could have 24'ed that one. :P

Conclusion the 2nd) The show has actually done a pretty poor job of really utilizing that 'you die, you turn' edict because if it were really true then think back to all the corpses in cars that should have been Walkers in episode 2x01? Perfectly wasted opportunity for creepy because I have seriously wigged myself out with images of the survivors walking through these 'abandoned' traffic snarls and opening a car only to have a zombie come out at them like a jack in the box. I originally wrote this scene with Carol kind of idly looking into the back seat of a van as she siphoned gas from it and dropping the gas can as she fell back screaming when a zombie kid suddenly lurched up against the glass trying to get out at her. I just *know* I'm giving myself nightmares tonight of me walking to my car in a parking lot filled with cars and the cars are all going to be filled with dead bodies but as I walk past them every now and again a head will do one of those uber-creepy death roll flops to gape at me with soulless dead eyes while others claw and snap at the confines of their car trying to get out and kill me.

Summation to my conclusions? I'm very long winded and horror is like the best/funnest genre ever!


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